Who won the parliamentary duel between Meloni and Schlein
Facts and words between Giorgia Meloni and Elly Schlein. Paola Sacchi's note
The long-awaited "duel" between the new secretary of the Democratic Party, Elly Schlein , and the premier Giorgia Meloni, thus somewhat inappropriately defined in an excessive rhetoric on the fact that two women are facing each other, actually photographs the impotence of the divided and without a real alternative government proposal.
Giorgia Meloni, at the long-awaited question time in the Chamber, replies in a determined and calm manner to the accusations of Schlein and the other "interrogators" on the immigration tragedies of Cutro and even on the one that took place in Libyan waters, on which Riccardo Magi insists in particular (+ Europe).
From the drama of immigration to economic and social issues, with Schlein attacking the minimum wage, equal parental leave and same-sex parenting, Giorgia Meloni rejects the impetuous accusations against the government of "approximacy, incapacity and insensitivity" across the board. The prime minister, flanked by the two deputy prime ministers Matteo Salvini, minister of infrastructure and transport, and Antonio Tajani, minister of foreign affairs, reiterates clearly: "Our conscience is clear, I hope that those who attack the government but say nothing about smugglers can say the same". And Meloni is indignant about the fact that there can only still be suspicions about the behavior of "valiant bodies of the state".
Faced with the migratory drama, which would require a more dialogical confrontation, the opposition once again with that accusation of "inhumanity" loses the opportunity to field a real proposal that goes beyond instrumental slogans.
But Schlein's front line of attack seems to make a small distinction later on TV, on Rete4, on "Controcorrente", the president of the Pd, Stefano Bonaccini, who, while saying he agrees on all lines with the leader, he also admits: "No State can welcome everyone and anyone". Small, even a little imperceptible to most, distinctions of a line of realpolitik with a more reformist flavor, in the body of a party still grappling with a long, entirely internal, secret game, which does not seem to have ended with the primaries and the coronation of the leader.
We then move on to economic and social issues.
Meloni rejects the minimum wage and reiterates that the point is to cut taxes on labor and lower the tax burden in general, starting with the groups that need it most. And he relaunches the accusations in the opposing camp, recalling that the governments that have existed so far, in which the left has almost always participated in the last eleven years, are responsible for what the data say, namely the fact that ours have been the poorer wages in industrialized countries. The "duel" is actually between two opposing visions of Italy: on the one hand, the centre-right government, clearly indicated by the vote of 25 September which, in a "pragmatic" way, says Meloni, amid a thousand inevitable difficulties, works with a common program to reverse the trend towards growth and development and on the other hand the "new spring" of an increasingly barricaded Democratic Party in the tone of the leader and the so-called former "wide field".
Where the words "growth and development" are absent and the competition between dem and pentastellati has already begun, on the scheme of the Union or rather "disunity" of Prodi's memory. The recollection of Marco Biagi, made in the classroom by the leader of Forza Italia Alessandro Cattaneo, recalls, amid applause, with the whole government standing, to that liberal and reformist lesson that seems to increasingly divide the center-right from a left without a real alternative proposal.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/meloni-schlein-duello-parlamento/ on Thu, 16 Mar 2023 06:33:38 +0000.