The center-left in Umbria shows unity. But there are tensions in Rome

The centre-left plays the unity card to try to wrest Umbria from the right. A challenge that would put the plus sign ahead of the entire electoral round, bringing the score from 2-1 for the center-right to 1-2 for the center-left. “We have supported a Stefania Proietti a very cohesive coalition, Umbria is the only region where all the alternative forces to the right have gone to one person to ask him to lead a collective project”, he says Elly Schlein in front of the hospital where the leaders of Pd, M5s and Avs met. “Don’t fight, stay together”, is the request that comes from the people surrounding the stage on which Elly Schlein climbs, Giuseppe Conte Nicola Fratoianni and Angelo Bonelli. Someone, more pragmatic, goes so far as to say: “If you have to argue, do it in secret”. To those who point out that it was possible to present ourselves unitedly before the last day of the electoral campaign, Conte replies: “There is no punctuality to be respected. Here we are with a serious political project like in Emilia Romagna”.

Il unitary garrison it was made official a few hours before the appointment, while the center-right leaders arrived in Perugia to hold the final rally in support of the outgoing governor. The challenge in the region, explains a Pd source, is very tense: the center-right is ahead by a few tenthsbut Stefania Proietti “is moving well”. The most worrying element, however, is abstentionism: among citizens, observes an Umbrian Dem, there seems to be little attention for this electoral round. To win the vote of the undecided, the center-left leaders are betting everything on local issues, applying them to the current affairs of national politics when the opportunity arises. Healthcare, from this point of view, is the heart of the entire electoral campaign, as demonstrated by the choice to gather in front of a hospital.

While the leaders of the center-left appear united in front of the Santa Maria hospital in Terni, the respective parliamentary troops hint at some skirmishes. Immediately sedated. What creates discontent are the words of Paolo Gentiloni who first attacks the superbonus, the symbolic measure of the Conte 2 government. Then he focuses on the Fitto ‘node’, recalling that five years ago the coordinator of Ecr, the European family of conservatives whose Fratelli d’Italia is also a member and voted in his favour. This is an underlining that even made some high-ranking members of the Democratic Party turn up their noses. The Dems are busy these days trying to stop the “slide to the right” of the next Von der Leyen Commission. A goal that they set themselves together with the entire S&D group. To do this, they are ready to say ‘no’ to the vice-presidency of the Commission entrusted to Raffaele Fitto.

“We have always said that Italy had to have a significant portfolio as a founding state”, says Schlein: “The political problem, the stalemate, was created by the People’s Party who in Parliament, not in the Commission, are trying to widen the majority structurally to the right. The problem has never been Fitto and his proxies”, remarks the dem leader, “the political problem is this expansion of the majority to the right”. A Fitto problem is, indeed, for Giuseppe Conte. “Fitto did not vote for the Pnrr. If you propose a commissioner with delegation to the Pnrr who did not vote for the Pnrr and who is responsible for the delays of the Pnrr, it means that you do not love Italy”. In addition to this, observes a dem, the European context must be taken into account.

According to this reading, Fitto would have found himself in the middle of a tug of war between Socialists and Populists. On the one hand Von der Leyen who, in view of the vote in Germany, has an interest in appearing as far away as possible from the European left and is holding back on the socialist Teresa Ribera. On the other, Pedro Sanchez who, besieged by the right at home, cannot show weakness towards his European interlocutor. A line that the Dems have developed over time, after internal discussions and with other European socialist forces. At the beginning of the discussion on the next Commission, the PD’s position appeared more ‘secular’: “We will listen to the various hearings and decide on the basis of the contents”, assured the Dems. Today, however, the priority is “to prevent the commission from leaning towards the right”, as all the European parliamentarians have repeated, starting with Nicola Zingaretti. This is why Gentiloni’s words were greeted by some grumbling in the dem’s house. And then, it is true that the ECR voted for Gentiloni, but Giorgia Meloni’s line was very different: the prime minister called people to the streets against Gentiloni’s nomination, recalls Dario Nardella.

If Gentiloni’s words on the appointment of Fitto they create discontent among the Demsthose on the Superbonus rekindle spirits in the 5 Star Movement. After the pandemic, Gentiloni explained, there was a reduction in Italian public debt which then stabilized and finally began to grow again. And this is due to the “prolonged impact of what we Italians call the Superbonus”, a measure which “had a more negative than positive impact”. The reaction of the M5s is immediate: “Gentiloni has an algorithm within him that makes him talk nonsense”, say the M5s parliamentarians of the Budget and Finance commissions of the Chamber and Senate. Faced with a possible new internal clash within the opposition, the Brothers of Italy are trying to fan the flames: “Rags are flying between the Pd and the 5 Star Movement”, says the group leader in the Chamber, Tommaso Foti: “The grillini don’t realize that between two days they will stand in the elections with the Democratic Party which they attack today. They are only together for political convenience”.