“I address a clear invitation to the government: Giorgia Meloni and her ministers come here to talk to citizens in difficulty. They come to discuss with farmers, hauliers, fishermen, breeders and with all Italians who suffer from the high cost of living and the high cost of fuel. You cannot think of solving such complex daily problems with decrees: you have just approved the eighth safety decree, what will you do now, the ninth?”. The leader of the 5 Star Movement, Giuseppe Conte, said this in the meeting in Pizzo with the Calabrian farmers and hauliers who protested against the high cost of fuel.
Repression and decrees instead of solutions
“You are clogging up the penal code – continued Conte – with new types of crimes and harsher sentences, even going so far as to provide prison for minors who experience situations of hardship. It is obvious that those who make mistakes must answer for their illegal behaviour, but you have a much greater responsibility: that of solving problems that you have denied for four years”.
Where to find resources: taxing extra profits
According to Conte “the money is there, you just need to go and get it where it has accumulated. There are companies in the energy, banking, financial and war sectors that have enriched themselves enormously. Those resources are now needed by desperate citizens who can’t make ends meet. There is no criminal infiltration here, there are only honest people who can’t take it anymore. Wake up, or go home”.
The crux of the agricultural supply chain and skyrocketing prices
“I say to the farmers of Calabria, Puglia and Campania that the real issue to be resolved is that of the supply chain: farmers are forced to produce below cost, while on the supermarket counters prices reach unsustainable levels for consumers. There is a clear disproportion in the distribution of revenues, unbalanced to the full advantage of large-scale distribution and intermediaries.”
We need structural measures, not ridiculous contributions
According to the leader of the M5S, “structural interventions are needed. We cannot think of resolving the crisis by allocating 60 million euros after days of mobilisation: it is a laughable figure. Even the regional presidents – and I say this out of intellectual honesty, also referring to the centre-right ones – have allocated more. Yours are only stopgap interventions, belated and completely insufficient. The government must take note of reality, rather than continue to talk about non-existent records while the country is on its knees. Without plus the resources of the PNRR, the executive has the duty to withdraw the accumulated wealth to redistribute it equitably to those in need.”
No to the criminalization of peaceful protests
“I’m here because the protest is peaceful and I can look these workers in the eyes. I strongly reject any generic and specious attempt to criminalize those who find themselves in serious difficulty. If there are limited episodes of illegality, the police will deal with them, but everyone cannot be lumped together.”
The silence of the media and the shortcuts of politics
“At the beginning, a large part of the news and the press simply ignored days and days of protests, while the shelves were emptied. Now, however, yet another security decree is being approved in an attempt to exchange the exasperation of respectable citizens with crime. It is an unacceptable simplification. The government has the duty to solve the problems with structural measures, but to do so it must first admit their existence. After having ignored the widespread social unrest, now try to deflect attention with repression and ridiculous bribes”.
A daily exasperation that unites citizens
Finally, the invitation to the government: “meeting these people shows how even ordinary citizens show solidarity with the protest. People understand that it is not a simple obstruction to traffic or the whim of those who enjoy emptying supermarkets, but the desperation of those who can no longer take it. The citizens are uniting, and this time the government is making a big mistake if it thinks of liquidating the issue by talking about “bad guys who strike on Fridays”. There is no timed strike here: there is a daily exasperation, active 24 hours a day, which will not stop.”