“Conte is the head, here you risk the authoritarian drift” – Libero Quotidiano

President Meloni, agreeing that the Italians are forced to turn their thumbs at home, but these continuous nocturnal communications by the Prime Minister, what sense do they have: Conte wants to say goodnight to us? «The controversy is of little interest to me at this stage. But from the beginning I had the suspicion that Conte believed that the emergency could be an opportunity to gain consensus and that many choices, including those of night communication, fall within this logic “.
Should I think that the prime minister improvised the communication to the country of total closure at midnight on Saturday so as not to leave the covers to the center – right governors of Lombardy and Piedmont, who had decided on it for their regions in the late afternoon?
«I do not fall into the trap of the party game. When the Covid emergency is defeated, then we will not make any discounts, we will get everything out and the Italians will be able to see who has worked for the country and who is thinking of himself. But of course, factories and offices are closed on Sunday already, the lockout could be communicated calmly yesterday; and so maybe it could have been better explained. But then what is there to do from the personal page of Conte on Facebook and not from the institutional channels? Have you noticed that thanks to this reason, the Prime Minister’s page has been enriched with 600 thousand followers? Should we think that urgent or service communications also fall within the premier’s communicative bulimia? It would be unforgivable ».

Is there too much politics in the management of this crisis?
«I think so. For this reason, we at the Brothers of Italy have asked from the first moment that an extraordinary commissioner who is extraneous to politics to manage the emergency should be appointed. Instead, the government did the exact opposite, pointed the cameras at itself and, late, appointed a commissioner who could not obscure the premier, so much is operational and not very media. “
What mistakes did the government make in your opinion?
“On January 31 he declared a state of emergency, published in the Official Journal the next day, but then he did nothing to worry about the emergency. He didn’t make masks, he didn’t buy respirators, he didn’t alert hospitals. On February 21st, Count still said that the citizens should not be alarmed, and we still sent the masks to China earlier this month. An incredible discrepancy between saying and doing ».
Do you share the further squeeze on individual freedoms and productive activities?
“Regardless of merit, such serious limitations on personal freedom cannot be taken without involving Parliament fully and communicated in this way. It takes seriousness. Here you risk an authoritarian drift. For this reason, with Salvini and Berlusconi, we made an appeal to Mattarella to receive us and we asked for the summons of the Chambers to the bitter end. It is essential to give Parliament the opportunity to exercise the powers that the Constitution has given it “.
But, on the merits, do you share the limitations imposed?
“To know what they are. Conte spoke on Saturday night, in the usual rhetorical and confused, impractical way. In any case, the government arrived yesterday to do what we asked him two weeks ago: to close everything, net of the essential things. The progressive crackdowns exhaust the population, it would have been better to have made a clear and timely decision at the beginning. The danger is that people are now starting to lose control. When we talked about it, I predicted to Conte that he would be forced to do what we asked him in advance, and less effectively, after wasting time and resources. It would be serious if the prime minister had not listened to us in due time because of a negative prejudice towards the opposition “.

Now it seems that if Italy is the country most affected by the virus, it is the fault of those who go shopping or take the dog out too much.
«Dog owners, as well as joggers, are painted like new greasers. But it is a weapon of mass distraction: individuals of the guilty to hide your faults and remedy your communicative incapacity, which is the real reason for the spread of the infection. Conte went from ostentatiously ignoring the problem to communicative bulimia. He was constantly appearing on TV giving outrageous news and attacking the opposition, without actually deciding anything “.
Perhaps he hesitated for a long time because he underwent several conflicting pressures?
«This will surely have happened. Of course it is not easy to govern right now, I have always recognized it. But the feeling is that he did not want to dissatisfy the Italians for reasons of consensus and that he has long attempted a synthesis between the diverging rights to health and freedom. But the result was that it dragged the emergency and its hesitations made us waste time and money. With the closings of the activities and factories, we will lose billions, but in order to arrive at this decision, we have burned others that we would not have lost. And I would add that, if we had immediately had a more rigid attitude, we would not have exposed our products to the attacks of the so-called European partners, who took advantage of the epidemic to discredit the Italian agri-food industry “.
Has there been an underestimation of the problem?
“This from the beginning, when the center-right governors asked to quarantine anyone who came from China and the majority accused us of racism and organized aperitifs of the contagion and collective hugs to the Chinese, ignoring the alarms of our ambassadors. Yes, I saw political prejudice there, the father of serious errors and consequent fatal damages. The majority was blinded by ideological fury and attacked anyone from the opposition who wanted to do something. But it also seems to me that the government has, from time to time, bent the communication to what it thought it could do. Think of the cases of masks and tampons ».
The masks that were not used to avoid contagion and are now indispensable?
“Exactly, when they were nowhere to be found, they were of no use. Now that we have started making them, they are indispensable. But also the asymptomatic. For weeks we have been told that they were not contagious because you didn’t want to swab. Now the political line has changed and they have been transformed into the new publishers ».
The masks make Minister La Boccia much laugh
“Why don’t you go to the ward in the intensive care units wearing those you show garrulous at a press conference?”
Confindustria presidential candidate Bonomi criticized interventions for the economy, claiming that they only help employees and not companies and the self – employed. Do they satisfy you?
«Apart from taking advantage of the emergency to extend the time for the tax checks by the tax agency by two years, which is a rather petty measure, when the exact opposite is needed. I believe that the choices of economic support made by the government do not take into account the risk of desertification of the production system “.
Comforting
«The layoffs are correct, but the main concern should be that of not closing. The government should reward the entrepreneur who does not lay off and treat him as a hero. Via roof to cash, invoices and electronic receipts. Instead no, the executive intensifies the controls and gives you the layoff as the only option, which is still a surrender, making it cheaper to close the shack than to go on. The first step to be taken, however, would have been to abolish the dignity decree and all bureaucratic obligations ».
Aren’t you afraid that blocking factories will cause irreparable damage to our economy, which is governed by exports?
“I’ve always told the government to save the export business. I know very well that if international customers are not supplied they will give you up, go to another and you will not recover them anymore ».
The European Stability Pact has jumped, with its constraints. Is this at least good news?
«The news is good, but the moral is always the same. The pact only jumped when the virus hit Germany and France and then Von der Leyen said she felt Italian. Like the story of the anti-Covid resources: as long as the problem was only Italy, the EU invested 200 miserable millions, when the virus attacked Germany, it began to talk about billions. The EU moves only to protect the interests of Berlin and, to a lesser extent, Paris. We don’t care, indeed, if you can kill us. The Lagarde affair is yet another proof of this ».
The gaffe of the president of the ECB. Should he resign?
«And who sends her away? That’s not a gaffe, Lagarde isn’t a girl. It was a conscious killerage against Italy. At the suggestion of the Germans, the president said that the ECB does not serve to close the spreads, which translated means that it would not move to stop speculation. So the Italian stock market collapsed by 17% in one day and the way was opened for foreigners, who will be able to buy our plundered assets for two lire ».
Does Italy risk bankruptcy?
“Europe ‘s goal is to force us to sign the MEF, after changing it with the introduction of the possibility of forcing an EU member state to restructure its debt. The game is always the same: the Germans want to make the Italian public debt pay by the Italian savers. The explosion of Covid in Germany and France then forced the ECB to step back and launch the massive purchase of government bonds. But there is no illusion, they will try again ».
Will Coronavirus kill the EU?
“I do not know. Even the Corona has shown that Europe divides itself on the big questions and each State goes without saying. And I’m not just referring to the closure of borders. Doesn’t it seem strange to you that Brussels has not yet provided for a single system for certifying deaths for Covid? If the EU were serious, on the model of the USA, it would not have a States-saving fund because the ECB would think that, like the Fed, it should have the task of guaranteeing growth and promoting work ».
For days, the governors have acted autonomously with respect to the decisions of the central state: does Covid not risk killing Italy, in addition to the EU?
“I don’t see centrifugal intentions in governors’ decisions. Administrators go in no particular order because the state is not credible and is not efficient. The decision-making of the Regions is a mirror of the weakness of this government, which arises from the fact that it has not been elected. And here the theme of consent returns. Citizens trust the governors more because they chose them, therefore they are more authoritative than a premier born from Palace agreements. We at Fdi have always said this: direct election of the head of state and greater decentralization, which if you have a strong central power it never becomes the dissolution of the national state ».
When will the emergency end?
“This is a question for doctors to ask. We politicians try to do our part. Let us say that we parliamentarians of Fratelli d ‘Italia have renounced our emoluments of the month of March to adhere to the fundraising in favor of the Papa Giovanni hospital in Bergamo. In twenty-four hours we collected 500 thousand euros. I hope others do the same thing. “