Schlein: “They tried to put me under administration and get rid of me, but I’m still here”

“Either we reach an agreement and leadership goes to whoever gets one more vote – as is the case in all European countries – or we hold primaries, for which I immediately declared myself willing to stand, precisely for the sake of the coalition. The candidate is not chosen through political manoeuvring or behind closed doors. They have always tried to co-opt me, bring me into their fold or eliminate me, and yet here we still are. I don’t think, therefore, that this is the time to have it explained to us how we are to win, because they will always tell us the same thing: ‘you win in the centre’, and that therefore ‘a candidate more open to broad coalitions, more moderate and reassuring, would be better’. Well, over the last 20 years, they’ve always made us lose that way, so I say it’s time to change and try something different”. PD Secretary Elly Schlein, interviewed by Il Foglio editor-in-chief Claudio Cerasa on stage at the Salone dei Cinquecento during the Festival of Optimism in Florence, once again ruled out the possibility of a centre-left unifier and asserted her leadership within the ‘broad coalition’ (pardon me, the ‘progressive alliance’, because, as Schlein says: ‘I’ve never called it a broad coalition’). Primaries, then, but when? “Regardless of when the vote takes place,” says Schlein, without answering the question directly, “we’ll be ready. We must follow our own path regardless of what happens. What is clear is that we’ll be united – that is the commitment and promise we’ve made to our voters.” Before the polling booths, Schlein is focusing on the programme. On this point she is more specific about the timetable: “We are working to ensure it is absolutely finalised by the end of the year. We’re not starting from scratch. The backbone is the set of joint legislative proposals we’ve put forward over recent years, from the minimum wage to healthcare. Proposals agreed with the third sector, the trade unions and associations, because that is how you build an alternative for Italy – not behind closed party doors.”

If there is one issue that divides the progressive alliance, it is Ukraine. But despite pressure from the M5S and AVS, Schlein calls for support – including military support – for Kyiv: “Because a major left-wing force must always prioritise the defence of international law, and international law has been trampled underfoot by a criminal invasion launched by Putin’s Russia against Ukraine. Alongside that support,” the secretary continues, “what we are asking of the EU is a political and diplomatic effort to isolate Putin – who, unfortunately, still relies on various international allies – in order to steer him towards fair peace negotiations, and I mean one thing specifically: not surrender to the aggressor’s demands.” This is why Schlein is calling for a more proactive European role: “As a staunch European federalist, I must say that this effort has not been made, and I believe that was a mistake. The EU must speak with one voice and show strength in foreign policy: we need a single European negotiator, preferably the head of a European institution.”

Prompted by Cerasa, Schlein also responds on what a government led by her would do first: “I have two very specific ideas which, in my view, are the priorities to be addressed at the first Cabinet meeting after we win the election: the issue of wages and the cost of energy. These are the two issues raised with me by families, workers and businesses I am meeting across the country. We cannot continue to have the highest energy costs in Europe.” As for energy, however, the solution is not nuclear power: “Production costs and timeframes are not compatible with this country’s needs; one need only look at those European countries that have invested in new-generation nuclear power, which took between 15 and 17 years to build. In other countries, such as Spain, nuclear power already exists, which is why any comparison is absurd.”

Schlein, on the other hand, argues that a major push is needed for renewables: “We are discussing this with our allies to rapidly reduce the cost of energy; we would do well to look with interest at the model of other European countries that have created a fully-fledged renewable energy supply chain, by streamlining and speeding up the authorisation process. It’s not straightforward: in Italy today, it takes seven years to get a plant up and running, whilst in Spain it takes two or three. This is not inevitable; it is a failure of governance, which must be addressed as such.” Schlein then clarified: “We need a dedicated task force at national level, involving the government and the regions, to identify suitable areas very quickly and thus really speed things up. We know there is resistance at local level: there is only one way to overcome it – not by imposing solutions from above, but by seeking to share these decisions with local areas and communities, immediately redistributing the benefits of that plant to the communities through discounts on energy bills and allocating a share of the energy produced straight away to small and medium-sized enterprises in that area.”