«The Liberal Democratic Party offers a dinner for two people in the best starred restaurant in Italy to anyone who is able to give a rational explanation to what will happen in the next three days in the Chamber of Deputies».
This was stated by MP Luigi Marattin, party secretary, in a post on social media a few hours after the text approved by the Senate reached Montecitorio. «And what will happen to the Chamber? Offices and officials working for days to prepare the necessary dossiers and documentation; legislative offices of the groups working to write the amendments; 13 commissions called to work to express an opinion; the Budget Commission at work for discussion on all the amendments, examination of admissibility of the amendments presented, including appeals and final decision; opinions on the amendments by the ministerial structures; discussion and vote in the Budget Committee on each of the amendments, vote on the mandate of the rapporteur; general discussion in the chamber, placing of the question of confidence, vote of confidence by roll call, discussion and voting on hundreds of agendas, final vote on the measure.
“A useless job that only exists in Italy”
All this work – explains Marattin – which includes several hundred people for several days, represents the most useless thing that exists today in Italy and probably in the world. In fact, it is carried out in full awareness that it will be of absolutely no use: because the Budget Law must be definitively approved by December 31st, and therefore cannot be modified even one iota (otherwise it would have to go back to the Senate and there would be no material time). It has been happening like this for years, in turn between the two branches of Parliament: last year it was the Senate that found itself in this situation, as it will be next year. And the same thing has been happening – for decades – for all the decree laws, which constitute almost all of the legislation produced every year by the Italian Republic”.
“A madness that happens because we persist in having two houses of Parliament that do the same thing”
«This total madness happens – underlines Marattin – because we persist in wanting to maintain a system in which there are two branches of Parliament which however do the exact same thing. The Liberal Democratic Party has been suggesting the solution for some time: instead of having a Senate of 200 members and a House of 400, let’s have a single National Assembly of 600 members. So that every parliamentarian can do the job for which he is, handsomely, paid. Do it in a useful way, of course. And not just symbolic like now. So, the competition is open: over the next three days the Chamber will carry out a detailed job. Whoever explains to us what the hell this is for in concrete terms for Italian citizens will win a dinner for two people in a 3-star restaurant”, he concludes.