Turin, Milan, Sicily: the other challenges facing the broad coalition seeking unity. AVS is demanding a voice

They worked until the evening to find common ground, a joint resolution ahead of today’s debate on the Public Finance Policy Document and the budget deviation: the PD, AVS and M5S are set to vote against it, but a single text – albeit a ‘priority’ one, as Giuseppe Conte puts it – is a further step that the broad coalition has not always managed to take. They will try again tomorrow, when Giorgia Meloni is due to address Parliament ahead of the European Council. However, foreign policy issues, particularly those concerning Kyiv, are not the only outstanding matters. And apart from Matteo Renzi, who is still the subject of debate, there are other issues that remain in the background for the time being but will carry significant weight. This is because the composition of local alliances – all the more so if an election were to be held in the spring on a single election day – will determine how national decisions are balanced out.

Avs is demanding a platform – the one it was denied in the recent regional elections in Calabria, when the left fielded Tridico as its candidate, despite the red-green coalition having proposed someone else (Flavio Stasi). And then, of course, the practical implications of certain policy choices are also gauged at local level: starting with infrastructure. Perhaps the thorniest case is that of Turin, run by the Democrat Stefano Lo Russo, who is seeking re-election. What does Chiara Appendino think? “To build a credible project, one in which everyone feels they have a stake – including the M5S community – we need a break with the past. For four and a half years, we’ve had city councillors calling for this in relation to housing, the environment and the suburbs,” she explained at the Festa del Foglio, suggesting that an agreement is by no means a foregone conclusion. The former mayor, like Avs, was out on the streets protesting against the TAV a few days ago, sending a clear message to the PD. When it comes to infrastructure, after all, this isn’t the first time the Democrats have faced such issues. It happened with the expansion of Bergamo Airport, causing fallout within the majority led by Elena Carnevali. The same occurred in Eugenio Giani’s council in Tuscany, where councillors from Avs and the M5S voted against a resolution concerning the development of another airport, that of Florence. Aeroplanes have nothing to do with it, but there will be negotiations in Milan too. And a need to bring order: first and foremost within the PD.

Here too, the M5S is calling for ‘a break with the past’, whilst Conte’s camp is putting the brakes on the primaries – something the Democrat Francesco Majorino would like to see happen. Mario Calabresi is ready to stand in them. Elly Schlein does not like the journalist – and the M5S likes him even less, preferring Gianni Barbacetto – but he has, in the meantime, received Renzi’s endorsement. Easier, almost a foregone conclusion, are the re-elections of Matteo Lepore in Bologna and – provided the ‘unifier’ role does not come back into fashion – those of Gaetano Manfredi in Naples and Roberto Gualtieri in Rome. The next sticking point could therefore come from Sicily, regarding the post-Schifani era. Alessandro Onorato, with his ‘Progetto Civico’, has already put forward Ismaele La Vardera (and Ingroia), who in the meantime is exchanging honeyed messages with Conte. The allies of the broad coalition fear a headlong rush forward, in a contest that also concerns the centre of the centre-left – once again, Renzi. Not exactly the best conditions for unity.