Meeting in Rome between Tajani, Occhiuto and Zangrillo. A ‘leadership’ meeting of Forza Italia

Antonio Tajani, Roberto Occhiuto and Paolo Zangrillo met in Rome, on Via San Lorenzo in Lucina. Officially, the meeting was arranged to discuss the budget bill, but in reality it was a sort of party leadership meeting and an opportunity for discussion with the leader of Forza Italia. The face-to-face meeting comes after a difficult few days within the party. Following Fabio Roscioli’s victory in the by-election, the President of Calabria has in fact regained a central role within the party, and just yesterday, as we report here, he had another ‘frank’ exchange with Tajani (mediated by Gianni Letta). He has been touring Italy to promote his book, giving interviews on radio and television. In one such interview, on ‘Un Giorno da Pecora’, he raised an issue that has long been debated in private discussions within the Occhiuto faction: asserting their ‘liberal’ views in the coalition’s forthcoming election manifesto. On end-of-life issues, “I would like there to be less timidity, and for there not to be a temptation to pass the buck”, said the Forza Italia deputy secretary. “I hope that this can be achieved at the start of the next parliamentary term and that such a law will feature in the centre-right’s manifesto for the forthcoming elections.” This is no minor point of contention, as FdI have pointed out that a law on end-of-life issues was not “in the government’s programme”. 

On 30 September, during the launch of the book “Il coraggio di governare. Liberal Ideas, the Strength to Put Them into Practice’, Occhiuto appeared to be postponing (at least for now) his bid for the party leadership. He assured everyone that he was merely the “deputy” and not the “anti-Tajani”, but he nevertheless directed several criticisms and “suggestions” at the FI leader to “change” a party that had “lost its lustre”. He emphasised, for example, that “the party’s and the secretary’s communication strategy might need reviewing”, and that “the entire leadership should return to Berlusconi’s standards”, without “being daunted by a degree of openness on issues of modernity and civil rights”, conveying their ideas to the outside world “in a modern, fresh way”.