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So the money has divided (but still keep together) Renzi and Calenda

1 year ago babelfish

So the money has divided (but still keep together) Renzi and Calenda

Money divides Renzi and Calenda, money keeps the groups together: around 50,000 euros per MP per year, for 1.5 million in public funding

It thundered so much that it rained. And in fact yesterday a video by Carlo Calenda seems to have put an 'end' to the alliance between two of the noisiest exponents of Italian politics: the leader of Action, in fact, and Matteo Renzi.

All finished? Calenda is categorical, but it is difficult to say, since in the past they gave each other a thrashing and then experimented with the way of fusion. "The project of the single party is definitively dead", the position taken by the former number 1 of the Mise under Renzi.

THE MONEY BEHIND THE DIVORCE BETWEEN RENTI AND CALENDA?

The reason for the redde rationem can be traced to an Ansa agency which was raided the day before yesterday, at lunchtime, exactly 24 hours before the Calenda split. "The only decisive problem today for the construction of the single party of the liberal democrats is that Renzi does not want to make the commitment to dissolve Italia Viva and to finance the new subject and the electoral campaigns", the words of an anonymous leader of the party of Calenda who defined the ex premier's tactics that lasted for months as "unacceptable".

«Matteo Renzi – underlined the source to Ansa in the dialogue that sparked the new crisis among the housemates – has surprisingly replaced Rosato at the helm of the party, to directly control its money and structure. In this way he also delegitimized the political committee of the Third Pole federation where today there is no IV representative capable of making commitments. Calenda deems this attitude unacceptable as it is contrary to the commitments made with the voters".

To conclude with an ultimatum addressed to the Tuscan ally: «The patience of the management team of Azione has run out. During the week we will understand if this knot can be resolved. If this is not the case, the single party cannot be born".

MONEY SPENT ON “THE FACE OF CALENDA”

Immediate reply from the opposite front. Francesco Bonifazi recalled : «It should be remembered that Italia Viva contributed equally to Action to all the Third Pole electoral campaigns. The choice of how to allocate the money was taken by Senator Calenda who opted in the vast majority of cases for billboards bearing his face and name. Italia Viva has currently contributed over one million and 200 thousand euros. As for the future 2 per thousand, it will obviously go to the structure legitimized by the Democratic Congress".

THE CALENDA COMPLAINT

If yesterday the accusations that Renzi and Calenda had made money were anonymous, today it is the leader of Action who says it openly, in a real outburst collected by Repubblica . «Money has everything to do with it, because if you create a new party you have to finance it, it's logical. Instead he wanted to keep Iv standing, to be Leopolda in 2024, right next to the European championships, while we at Action maybe financed his candidates. But this is madness. The truth is that structurally Renzi cannot take a step to one side. We saw it after the referendum. That's how it is."

Calenda also hisses : "I thought it was possible to have a single party and naively that Renzi would take a step to the side, given that he earns 2 million around the world". In fact , as we recalled yesterday, the financial situation of the two is quite different. According to the documents filed in the Senate relating to the 2021 fiscal year, the former prime minister is one of the richest elected officials with a taxable income of 2.56 million euros; Calenda, on the other hand, with its 63,990, doesn't even try to compete (we should add the income from the European Parliament received until October 2022 which is not subject to taxation in Italy).

Hence the request to the former ally to dissolve before merging and not first merge and then dissolve the parties: «We had established very clear clauses: dissolve IV and Action, share the money, an anti-lobby clause, which would not have been valid only for him, but for everyone. We need an ethical scrutiny ». And immediately, again via Twitter, Calenda kicks off the new membership campaign.

MONEY LAST CORDON BETWEEN RENTI AND CALENDA

Then, however, the leader of Azione always adjusts the shot: "We will go ahead with two parties and, if we restore the climate, we will join forces where possible". So much so that, as far as the parliamentary groups are concerned, the path of alliance at the moment remains the only one traced: "Of course there is a problem of mutual trust and we will have to work on this because in any case we have common parliamentary groups".

A separation at home that will lead to forced cohabitation in Parliament. Just as money divides Renzi and Calenda, money keeps groups together: around 50,000 euros per MP per year. The Chamber needs 15 representatives to form a group and out of 21 deputies the Renzians are 9.

There are 5 Renzians in the Senate, 6 are needed to form a group, but the real obstacle is that the Action Italia viva symbol is in common and the Palazzo Madama regulation provides that the groups are crystallized to those on the electoral lists. In all, the never-born Third Polo counts 30 ladies: 50,000 euros each and the bill is quickly made: 1.5 million euros of public funding per year. The last cord that still unites the two. At the risk of turning out to be a noose. But for whom?

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/cosi-i-soldi-hanno-diviso-ma-tengono-ancora-uniti-renzi-e-calenda/ on Fri, 14 Apr 2023 11:13:32 +0000.