Renzi tries to pull off a coup with the PD with the “German-style contract”. But it failed with Conte I –

Look Brunello

August 2, 2024

The image is not among the most comforting. Matteo Renzi, Angelo Bonelli, Giuseppe Conte, Nicola Fratoianni and Elly Schlein locked in a room drafting the “German” contract. “Do we approve the minimum wage?”, “Don’t even say it as a joke”, “Do we proceed with the separation of the careers of magistrates?”, “Then say it, I’ll blow up the government”: not even a very imaginative dialogue between the possible allies of the broad field, on paper, divided on everything. A chaos, more than a possible parliamentary majority. And yet the leader of Italia Viva himself has resurrected the infamous “German” contract: “the broad field is a very difficult alliance to build and it will take a German contract, to use the words of Giuseppe Conte, in another geological era, with the yellow-green government. We will have to sit there, identify the issues on which it is possible to converge and find an agreement”. The instrument in question was used in 2018 to regulate relations between the M5S and the League during the first government of the then almost unknown Giuseppe Conte, precisely the people’s lawyer. An executive not particularly memorable in terms of cohesion, lasting 1 year, three months and four days. In practice the time to approve the security decrees (requested by Salvini), and the citizen’s income (flagship of the 5 Star Movement). And slowly consumed amid continuous controversy, to then crash disastrously on the construction of the Turin-Lyon high-speed railway (opposed by the unforgettable transport minister of the time, Danilo Toninelli).

To say that there is no contractual bond capable of cementing irreconcilable political relationships. On the other hand, the boundaries of a center-left alliance continue to be hotly debated. Yesterday, Goffredo Bettini intervened again on the topic, having christened Francesco Rutelli, and has acquired undoubted expertise on the subject. In practice, the founding father of the left would not start with Renzi and Calenda: «I would not choose them to build the new, if I were a man of the center. They are important personalities but they cannot be, as in the past, the protagonists». And he continues: «Renzi himself has said several times that he does not intend to deal the cards. Opening a process and being in it is a different thing than positioning oneself as the only interlocutor. This would be wrong, for Italia Viva and the alliance as a whole. Already in these days, discomfort and discontent are being felt from many sides».

Difficulties and bad feelings that cross the broad field especially in Liguria, despite the fact that the former Prime Minister has given the green light to the candidate in pectore, Andrea Orlando. “Andrea Orlando was my minister – says the former mayor of Florence -. Then my rival. I clashed with him on a lot of issues. I don’t know if he will be the candidate for Liguria, but if there are no vetoes and we sit down, it is not certain that we will make an agreement, but if I do not want vetoes I will not put any. We are there”. At the Nazareno they have decided to keep a low profile, not to relaunch and in fact not to respond to the continuous offers of the centrist ally. Also because Giuseppe Conte, Nicola Fratoianni and Angelo Bonelli, are already sufficiently nervous, it is useless to fuel preventive divisions, we will settle the accounts in due time. M5S and Avs are not convinced even with the German-style contract, for them the doors must remain closed to unwanted guests. “Renzi is his usual self, and then when all is said and done he takes away more votes than he promises us,” they say from Campo Marzio, the headquarters of the Five Stars. In short, a puzzle that for now has no solution, after all not all courtships have a good outcome.