Azione’s red lines regarding Forza Italia

After Piedmont, now Calabria too. “Roberto Occhiuto is governing well; he has provided a much-needed shake-up. And we’re interested in his stance within Forza Italia,” Marco Lombardo, a Calabrian senator from Azione, tells Il Foglio. We ask him how close the party is to Forza Italia, and how open it is to an alliance ahead of the general election: “The question is whether a coalition should be formed to govern or to win,” he replies. Because in the latter case, we risk including elements that ultimately lead to stagnation, to treading water, to a failure to make decisions. It is impossible to reconcile a conservatism that flirts with patriotism with European liberalism. There are enormous contradictions within today’s majority; one need only think of Matteo Salvini’s call to halt aid to Kyiv.”

Carlo Calenda, leader of Azione, has said that a centre-right without Salvini would emerge stronger, and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has put in writing that the government’s position on Ukraine will not change, to the satisfaction of both Azione and Forza Italia. “It is the party that most fully embraces our issues,” says Lombardo, “from competition to support for businesses, right through to nuclear power. But they should overcome their timidity on civil rights, as Marina Berlusconi, Alberto Cirio and Occhiuto himself have been advising them to do for some time.” Occhiuto’s stance, both in Calabria and within the party in Rome, is well regarded by Azione. “It’s a good thing.” If there is to be a coalition at all, says the Calenda-aligned senator, let it be one aimed at governing. “Let’s move from words to deeds,” says Francesco De Nisi, regional secretary of Azione in Calabria, on the conditions for a genuine alliance between the two parties. In Rome, however, Lombardo hopes that Calenda will remain open to dialogue. “We will engage in dialogue with everyone: with the more liberal wing of the centre-right and with the reformist wing of the centre-left,” concludes the senator, “but it is a fact that the former carries far more weight than the latter.”