“Roberto Occhiuto must decide whether to be the president of a Calabria that can rise again or the melancholic and resigned Governor of a region destined to be devastated by differentiated autonomy, a poor and battered statelet, last among the last in Italy and Europe. And Forza Italia, which boasts its greatest points of consensus in the southern regions, must be more courageous in curbing the senseless Northern League project, not limiting itself to asking for a postponement of the discussion of the Calderoli law”. This was stated in a press release by the former president of the Regional Council, Mimmo Tallini.
“I appreciated that Occhiuto expressed these concerns to the leader of his party, Antonio Tajani, but this – according to Tallini – cannot be enough, there is a need to decisively correct a plan which in its current draft would inflict a mortal blow on Calabria and the entire South. Learning that the centre-right majority has decided to postpone the discussion and the possible approval of the law on differentiated autonomy is nevertheless good news. This is good news for the entire centre-right which will have the opportunity to start a discussion within itself aimed at verifying whether the political elements that hold it together are of general interest and not, as many claim, the interest of a well-defined part of the territory national. A discussion that will serve to try to put an end to the many fibrillations that have been animating the government majority for some time to the point of encouraging a political opposition grappling with a thousand internal problems; not least the tangentopoli which demolishes the model of the left of Governor Emiliano in the Puglia Region. It is good news for all those who live in Southern Italy and who do not have political representation capable of countering a process that could be disastrous for the prospects of their territories, as was the approval of Fiscal Federalism in 2001 which, through the modification of the criterion for transferring resources to local authorities has, in twenty years, taken away hundreds and hundreds of billions from the development of Southern Italy”.
According to Tallini “a generalized and uniform retreat which ends up penalizing the same industries in the North which have historically profited from market profits by placing their products on consumers in Southern Italy. A particularly delicate moment for the government majority which, despite counting within it numerous representatives from Southern Italy, is forced, despite their proclaimed subservience, to start an internal reflection due to the awareness of so much civil society, including the Catholic Church , and a dissent that not only calls into question the health of the majority but which could become, if not evaluated with balance, the bane of all those who have in mind the overthrow of Meloni and the Center-Right. Tajani has experience and balance and could represent a guarantee to keep any political backlashes in the majority under control. We refuse to think that the entire political class is resigned to impotence with respect to a programmatic point (differentiated autonomy) which, essentially, keeps the centre-right government in place. We will see, of course, that historical opportunities do not happen every day (I don't believe in the motto “it's better to live one day as a lion than a hundred years as a sheep”) because the life of great historical figures has shown that, sometimes, cashing in can meaning seeking the opportunity for the right time to act.”
Finally, Tallini hopes “that Roberto Occhiuto has convinced Tajani chand it would be political suicide to approve a law which, as it has been proposed, would reduce Italy into many small states. Just as I hope that the Regional Council is up to the challenge, passing a motion that is as shared and united as possible to represent in Rome the clear opposition to the current Calderoli plant”.