Renzi opens the Leopolda conference with De Luca: “The centre-left must go on the offensive on security”

The first to speak at the 14th Leopolda will be Vincenzo De Luca, and Matteo Renzi explains why in an interview with Il Messaggero: “We want to say that the centre-left must go on the offensive on security; it cannot play defensively.” This is the ground on which the right feels strongest, and the leader of Italia Viva is trying to turn the tables. “The government has failed: Italians are poorer than they were five years ago, but they also feel less safe than they did five years ago.” As for the former governor of Campania, “he is not a sheriff but a man of common sense”. Renzi does not say whether he could be Italia Viva’s candidate for the coalition primaries.

The other key phrase is ‘middle class’. The first proposal from the Leopolda will be “to grant a fourteenth month’s salary to those sections of the middle class who are suffering the most: teachers, nurses and law enforcement officers”. It forms part of a “middle-class decree” which also covers social housing, self-employed workers and artificial intelligence. And it is also a dig at their allies: “Families need money, not discussions about the primaries”.

The rift with the Five Star Movement remains, and Renzi stands by it: “We’re voting under a proportional representation system. So our ideas differ from those of the Five Star Movement, and I’m very happy about that: the rule of law, reformism, subsidiarity. We are not like them; otherwise, we would be part of a single party.” On the middle class, Europe and innovation, we can work together, but only with a clear programme: “We have called for a German-style agreement, so that no one can stray from the path.”

On foreign policy too – the issue that most divides the broad coalition – Renzi is setting out clear boundaries. Re-armament must be addressed at European level, support for Ukraine “is not up for debate”, and the two states must move towards mutual recognition of Israel and Palestine. Diplomacy, he adds, must be conducted “without trampling on the principles and causes of those under attack”.

According to Renzi, the Prime Minister is already on the campaign trail, to the extent that she has “even foregone a trip to the UN to appear on Vespa’s programme”. However, in his view, that is not enough: “If you’ve done nothing for four years, three announcements at the end of the parliamentary term aren’t enough to change people’s opinion of you”. And with Vannacci out of the governing coalition, the centre-left is “objectively the favourite and leading in the polls”.

As for the date of the vote, “it would make sense to hold it in May alongside the local elections. But if fears of Salvini and Tajani prevail, Meloni will postpone it until November 2027. So, as well as the trains, Salvini will also manage to delay the elections”.

Among the guests at the Leopolda is Andrea Stroppa, now known as ‘Musk’s man in Italy’ but, as Renzi recalls, ‘someone we discovered’ back in his days at Palazzo Chigi. And there is Mario Calabresi, whom the leader of IV considers ‘an outstanding candidate for mayor of Milan’. But on this point, he warns, ‘it will be the people of Milan who decide, not me’.