«I have never maintained that this law is a law that divides Italy because I have always said that differentiated autonomy is a possibility already offered by the Constitution but that for the south it would have been much more useful if through this discussion we had arrived at the financing of The P”. The president of the Calabria Region and deputy national secretary of Forza Italia said this, speaking to journalists Roberto Occhiuto.
«I would like to point out – he added – that there is a recently defined lep, the one for nursery schools and which has seen many more resources for nursery schools in the south than was the case in the past. So if there had been the resources to finance the leps the south would have made a deal. However, with this law, unfortunately, the resources are not yet there. And then I said that there were some issues that probably needed to be explored further, such as the impact assessment on non-LEP subjects and I gave the example of foreign trade. What happens to Calabrian farmers who export their goods if five or six regions become autonomous in foreign trade?
Do they have an advantage or a disadvantage? We don’t know, we need to do an impact assessment. So I asked for this topic to be explored further.” «In my opinion there were also the times – said Occhiuto – because no one wants to question the centre-right programme, but in that program, in addition to this reform there is that of the premiership and that of justice. These other two reforms will see the light in many months and therefore I did not understand why such a sudden approval had to be achieved, which if instead it had been more discussed and represented to the country as less divisive perhaps it would have also been better understood by the citizens of the south ».
«For me – Occhiuto said again – it is much more complex because I am a regional president of the centre-right and I am a national director of the centre-right. So for me it’s much more complicated to take on positions like those I have taken over but I am first and foremost the president of Calabria and the Calabrians and as I said from the beginning, this reform had to concern differentiated autonomy but also overcoming historical spending. I gave the example of the three wagons: one autonomy, the other overcoming historical spending through the financing of the lep, the other equalization.
It seems to me that, however, due to the way in which this reform was approved, at night and in a hurry, it seems more like a flag to be given to a political force rather than a reform capable of overcoming the gap between the regions of the south and those of the north.”