Letters
Letters to the Editor •
If the broad coalition is looking more towards the Quirinale than towards Palazzo Chigi
Who wrote to the editor-in-chief, Claudio Cerasa
10 NOV 26
Translated by AI
Photo: LaPresse
To the Editor – If there were full and responsible awareness, energy should be right at the top of the list of concerns for those preparing to seek the Italian people’s vote in the forthcoming elections. Perhaps second only to issues of international security and ahead of many other, perhaps more popular, issues. A country without secure, low-cost energy is a country at extremely high risk. Without energy – it is a tiresome repetition, but it must be said – there is no economic growth, no prosperity, no jobs and no social services. Every day, the price of electricity rises, setting new records. And that is only part of the problem, because electricity accounts for just 25 per cent of our energy consumption. Then there are fuels for civil and commercial transport, heating, industrial heat and many other things. It is not just a question of price and the consequences for inflation. I do not wish to exaggerate, but for a nation, securing the necessary energy is truly a matter of life and death. Yet I have the impression that the general view is more or less that this rough patch will pass. That sooner or later the Russian-Ukrainian war will end, that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen, and that everything will return to the way it was before. But what if that were not the case? What if exactly the opposite were to happen? The energy issue is a veritable sword of Damocles that has threatened us in the past and continues to threaten our country, which is poor in energy and raw materials. There are no short-term solutions. We can develop as much renewable energy as we like – assuming that integrating it into the grid does not cost more than it yields; according to Terna, there are some issues – but at best we will see only minor benefits, and we will certainly not be able to meet the enormous demand for electricity generated by air-conditioners, electric cars, heat pumps and data centres. Without nuclear power, it is a futile endeavour. Then there remains the issue of gas and oil, where perhaps we should start by looking at what we have at home. There are many forms of dependence: one is that we prevent ourselves, by law, from reducing it by failing to do the things we could do. Of course, for those who think the era of fossil fuels is over whilst their consumption is rising worldwide, the problem does not exist. But if we return to reality, what is needed is a national pact among all stakeholders, treating energy availability as strategically important as national security. A burst of pride that breaks away from predictable and largely ineffective solutions, in the knowledge that it takes decades to change direction. But the sooner we start, the sooner we’ll get there.
Chicco Testa
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To the Editor – Dear Cerasa, the credibility of an election manifesto is usually inversely proportional to both the number of pages it contains and its level of ‘occorrismo’. This is a veritable pathology of Italian politics: lists of things to do are often as long as Lent itself, but very rarely specify costs and funding sources (spending cuts, new taxes, recourse to public debt). In this respect, those presented so far by the main forces of the centre-left coalition do not inspire optimism. All that remains is to await the publication of the much-anticipated ‘broad coalition’ programme for a final judgement. In the meantime, the Cottarelli bill, relaunched by a campaign organised by the Luigi Einaudi Foundation (which collected 116,000 signatures), has reached the Senate’s Constitutional Affairs Committee. The bill requires parties and movements standing for election to quantify the estimated costs and corresponding funding sources for each proposal. It is a principle of democratic transparency, as simple as it is revolutionary. Hearings at Palazzo Madama are due to begin shortly. The proceedings are expected to be lively.
Michele Magno
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To the Editor – In his interview with Fabrizio Roncone in Sunday’s Corriere, Renzi expressed the hope that, should he win the forthcoming elections, the broad coalition could last two years: two years, not five, as would be desirable for anyone aspiring to govern the country. And what would he do during these two years? Secure financial flexibility from the European Union (Renzi claims to have secured 30 billion a year in flexibility, though it is more likely to have been 30 in total over four years) – though it remains to be seen how this will be used; appoint the heads of state-owned enterprises (thereby placing a few people close to the centre-left in key positions); appoint the new President of the Republic (heaven forbid that someone from outside the usual circle should be elected – even if they might actually reflect the views of the majority of Italians).
Stefano Veronese
And yet that is precisely the key: finding it difficult to point out to voters a Trump-style threat linked to the present, the centre-left is seeking a way to highlight a Trump-style threat linked to the future in order to build support, transforming the forthcoming election campaign not into a contest over who should lead Palazzo Chigi but over who should lead the Quirinale. This is political acrobatics, unstable by nature, but not necessarily doomed to defeat at the polls.