All the key issues in the spring election, from regional autonomy to MPs’ pensions

Officially, Giorgia Meloni is having her representatives (Giovanni Donzelli in particular) reiterate that the government will serve out its full term until the natural end of the parliamentary term this autumn. Yet at Palazzo Chigi, international crises permitting, early April has been circled in red as the date to return to the polls. Not before then, because it is only at the end of March 2027 that MPs elected for the first time become eligible for pension rights. Exactly four and a half years after the first sitting of Parliament, back in October 2022. No prime minister, for obvious reasons, would risk taking such a gamble any sooner. Meloni, however, is determined to avoid any overlap with the May local elections in the major cities – from Rome to Milan, from Turin to Naples – where the centre-left is strongest and could benefit from a knock-on effect. Hence the decision to act pre-emptively.

After all, the electoral reform put forward by the centre-right – the Melonellum or Stabilicun, whichever you prefer to call it (which is due to be approved by the Chamber of Deputies by the summer and by the Senate by September at the latest) – supports this strategy because, with the majority bonus awarded to whoever exceeds 42 per cent of the vote by the greatest margin, it produces a certain winner: whoever wins, even by just a few tens of thousands of votes, can immediately take office at Palazzo Chigi and pass the budget bill within the set timeframe without risking a provisional budget if the deadline of 31 December is missed.

Holding the election in early spring would also have the advantage, again from Palazzo Chigi’s point of view, of putting pressure on the opposition: Parliament would have to be dissolved in January, effectively after the approval of the legislature’s final budget bill, and this means that PD Secretary Elly Schlein and M5S President Giuseppe Conte must hurry to resolve the issue of the premiership.

However, this proposal still requires the Head of State’s approval. And the allies still need to be persuaded. Starting with the Lega. The stance taken by the Minister for the Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti , certainly did not go unnoticed; last Tuesday, he ruled out the possibility of an early election in April ‘in order to bring the parliamentary process to a successful conclusion’ on autonomy. Agreements between the government and the northern regions on the so-called ‘non-LEP’ matters are moving forward. But there is still a long way to go. On 19 February, the Council of Ministers gave the green light to the draft agreements with Veneto, Lombardy, Piedmont and Liguria for the transfer of certain functions in the areas of civil protection, healthcare, supplementary pension schemes and professional bodies (these are precisely the ‘non-LEP’ matters, i.e. those for which, in theory, it is not necessary to first determine the ‘essential levels of service’ regarding civil and social rights across the whole of the national territory).

The next deadline is now 13 July, when Parliament is due to give its non-binding opinion. After that, it will be plain sailing: each region will have to approve the final agreement and notify the government so that the Council of Ministers can approve the final agreement and a draft bill to ratify it, which will then have to be put to a vote in Parliament. Of course, Parliament may introduce amendments. But this is where the ironclad pact signed by Calderoli and the League with Giorgia Meloni comes into play: a ‘yes’ to the agreements so that the League’s flag can be flown in the North during the election campaign, in exchange for a ‘yes’ to the electoral reform so dear to the Prime Minister. Not to mention that the enabling bill defining the LEPs (which Minister Calderoli had to rewrite following the Constitutional Court’s partial annulment of the framework law in Ruling 192 of 2024) must also be approved. The framework law is currently under consideration by the Senate’s Constitutional Affairs Committee.