«Depopulation cannot condemn Sardinia and Sicily to progressively lose representation in Parliament. For this reason we have filed a constitutional bill that modifies articles 56 and 57, introducing a safeguard threshold for the representation of the two Regions: the number of members of the Senate of the Republic and the Chamber of Deputies elected in the islands cannot be lower than that resulting from the distribution based on the 2021 census” declare the Democratic Party senators Marco Meloni and Antonio Nicita in a joint note.
«Distances, transport costs, lack of services and fewer work and study opportunities contribute to a low birth rate and a high and growing emigration, especially among young people. A vicious circle is thus created: the disadvantages of insularity contribute to depopulation, which in turn risks reducing the weight of the Islands in the institutions called to adopt measures to reduce those same disadvantages. The proposal maintains the population criterion, but introduces protection against future reductions in representation”, add the Democrats.
«It does not restore the number of seats prior to the reduction of parliamentarians and does not increase the overall number of deputies and senators. Approving this reform means giving concrete implementation also in the field of representation to the principle of insularity, recognized by the Constitution in 2022 and remained unimplemented in this legislature due to the responsibility of the government and the right-wing majority”.