Who throws fuel on excise duties?
The puffs of the oppositions. Meloni's reply. And the debate in the majority. How the price of petrol shakes the palaces of politics. Paola Sacchi's note
Enrico Letta defines it as the center-right government's "first major communication error" and regrets with a football metaphor on what for him would be a missed opportunity due to the divisions of the Democratic Party also on the same rules for the primaries, recomposed in part in extremis. “We could have scored an empty goal…”, says Letta.
The point, however, is that the already visibly badly placed "attacker" clung, with the "third pole", to a video of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, then as president of FdI, from 2019, an era ago now in politics, somewhat on the same pattern as the pro-Bolsonaro, Trump and Putin video also from 2019 used virally by the opposition on the web against Matteo Salvini, after the serious attacks by Bolsonaro fans on Brazilian institutions, despite an official note from the League the same night had already clearly condemned them.
But, apart from the attitude of the pre-war archival oppositions, in the sense of before Russia's war on Ukraine, and even before Covid, returning to the attacks on Meloni on petrol price increases , following the government's decision in the Budget to put an end to the discount of 18 cents per liter, to return to Letta's metaphor the door is not empty.
Meloni, after the government decree against speculation which obliges managers to display the daily price of fuel, immediately reacts clearly with a video. The premier not only recalls that he still thinks about the reduction of excise duties as in 2019 and obviously underlines that it was another political era, but replies harshly by denying the accusation of having failed to fulfill the "promise" of the last electoral campaign. He recalls that he spoke of cutting excise duties only in the presence of higher revenues and that these, however, "were not there".
Meloni, back from the new meetings with the EU leaders and the Pope, who increasingly accredit him on the international scene, claims the choice of having preferred to allocate those approximately 10 billion, which would have gone to maintaining the discount on fuel, to a choice of "social justice" against high bills for those who are most in difficulty, companies, with the cut in the tax wedge, the increase in minimum pensions. The latter measure particularly wanted by Forza Italia and not surprisingly mentioned by the premier in the face of some perplexities that there would be among the Azzurri on the petrol issue.
A battery of statements by FdI parliamentarians, with the group leaders of the Chamber and Senate, Tommaso Foti and Lucio Malan, the vice president of the Chamber, Fabio Rampelli, takes the field in defense of the premier – consistent with his repeatedly stated line of wanting to do "right" choices, also challenging unpopularity – and attacking the "responsibilities of the left in government for more than 10 years".
It is clear that the fuel card is being used as an electoral weapon close to the close deadlines of the appointments in Lazio and Lombardy by a centre-left that reunites only on this, but is deeply divided internally, with variable alliances with the Five Stars of Conte who is attempting the takeover bid on the Democratic Party and which in Lazio could seriously jeopardize the confirmation of the left.
For the government and the center-right, the match is not easy on a topic so deeply felt in the country. But being forced to dust off even pre-war videos to use against the center-right government and its prime minister to attempt a comeback does not reveal a very great shape of the opposition attackers. For which it will hardly be enough to start again from petrol.
Although Lazio and Lombardy remain a first political test for the government and also for internal relations in the center-right where there are inevitable perplexities and fears on the petrol issue between the allies of FI and Lega.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/accise-benzina-governo-opposizioni/ on Thu, 12 Jan 2023 06:15:46 +0000.