«Bettino Craxi was a significant personality of the last decades of the Italian twentieth century. Italian and European parliamentarian, Secretary of the Italian Socialist Party for over fifteen years, President of the Council of Ministers, he left a mark on the country’s directions in a season characterized by great social transformations and profound changes in global balances”. The President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, thus remembers Bettino Craxi on the 25th anniversary of the death of the socialist leader.
«An authoritative interpreter of our European, Atlantic and Mediterranean foreign policy, a supporter of the development of the most disadvantaged countries, open to multilateralism, along these lines – underlines the Head of State – he has faced difficult passages, strengthening the identity and value of the Italian position. A prestige that was later personally recognized by him with important positions at the United Nations.”
«The policies and reforms of which he was the interpreter at the internal level – notes Mattarella – brought about changes that affected public finances, the competitiveness of the country, and the balance and prospects of government. A strong determination characterized his political battles, both in the confrontation between parties and in the social and trade union field, catalyzing contrasting feelings in the country. He gathered a broad consensus when he managed to bring to a conclusion the process of revision of the Concordat between the State and the Catholic Church, on whose inclusion in the Constitution the socialists had expressed themselves in negative terms at the time of the Constituent Assembly”.
«The crisis that hit the political system, undermining its credibility, ended a season with investigations and trials, causing a radical change in representation. Judicial events – he continues – which characterized that stormy passage in the life of the Republic. On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of the socialist leader, I would like to express feelings of closeness to his family and to those who – concludes Mattarella – shared political commitment and personal friendship with him”.
“Unjust exile”: La Russa and Tajani’s homage to Hammamet
The signature ‘On behalf of many Italians’ on the register of those present at the commemoration in the small cemetery in the shadow of the Medina of Hammamet and the bouquet of red and white flowers on the tombstone with the writing ‘My freedom equals my life’. It is the homage of the President of the Senate Ignazio La Russa who flew to Tunisia to participate in the celebrations for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Bettino Craxi. At the ceremony, alongside his children Stefania and Bobo and supporters and friends, was also deputy prime minister Antonio Tajani. The presence of La Russa and Tajani «brings order to the pages of history», comments Nicola Carnovale, general director of the Craxi Foundation. Moreover, in the words of the President of the Senate and the Deputy Prime Minister, the desire to highlight Craxi as a “great figure in history”, to quote La Russa, emerges. Who also observes how “it shouldn’t have happened that he should die here in exile”. «Craxi – underlines Tajani – was one of the great protagonists of post-war Italian political history». «He was one of the great protagonists of Italian foreign policy together with Andreotti and Berlusconi – continues Tajani – a man who always had the courage to defend his ideas, paying for his choices even with exile, the victim of a senseless justice system ».
However, on the day of commemoration of the socialist leader there is no shortage of controversy. «One thing I would like to say – he observes his daughter Stefaniasenator of FI and president of the Foreign Affairs commission of Palazzo Madama – is that in all these years important institutional and political personalities have come to pay homage to Craxi and restore honor to him in HammametPresident La Russa also came to us privately a few years ago, Tajani came as president of the European Parliament, then I can mention the president of the Senate Marcello Pera, the then president of the Chamber Pierferdinando Casini. There have been many but no significant institutional or political exponent from the center-left has yet trod the sand of Hammamet.”
While the national secretary of the PSI, Enzo Maraio, while recognizing «great respect for the second office of the State which is in Hammamet» observes that «the history of the La Russa, of those who have not renounced the ‘flama’à, of those who preserve the busts of Mussolini and who is not capable of saying that fascism was an absolute evil, is not compatible with that of Craxi”. The presence of La Russa is right, as deputy secretary Michele Simone comments from the Nuovo Psi: «Bettino Craxi was above all an authentic, sincere and convinced reformist, to whom today also the president of the Senate, Ignazio La Russa, whom we thank for his presence, he felt he was paying homage.”