Regional autonomy: Veneto and Lombardy ready to negotiate, Emilia on stand-by - Video / Salvini: EU take care of other things

It only awaits the time of publication in the Official Gazette, after which the Veneto is already ready to ask the government to start negotiations for autonomy. Not for all 23 subjects, but for the nine that will not have to deal with the establishment of the LEP (essential levels of performance): from justices of the peace to civil protection, from professions to supplementary welfare, from trade with foreign countries to the internal relations of the region with the EU. Luca Zaia wants to remain the standard-bearer in the regions' negotiations for more autonomy. A game in which Lombardy and Emilia Romagna are already part of, with pre-agreements already signed with Palazzo Chigi. Another League-led region, Piedmont, is ready to join in. Alberto Cirio has announced that he will ask for autonomy on all the subjects envisaged by the law; with an integration compared to the request of his predecessor Sergio Chiamparino, who had asked for 13 out of 23.

Even Lombardy, after the go-ahead in the Chamber of Deputies, has made it clear that it does not want to waste any time. Attilio Fontana is focusing above all on healthcare and the environment, convinced that the best-performing region in the north 'will be able to go even faster, and be even more competitive against its global competitors. "On matters within our competence," he said, "we will be able to create faster and more efficient procedures that our entrepreneurs and workers are constantly asking us for.

The road, for everyone, including the regions that may join the negotiations in the meantime, is not a short one. Apart from the opposition's abrogative referendum, the law sets 24 months as the period of time that the government will have to adopt the LEP, with one or more legislative decrees. And these will require the agreement of all, not just the 'autonomist' regions. On competing subjects, moreover, the law attributes the power of veto to the premier. To give an example: a Region asks for 23 subjects, the Prime Minister could grant many fewer.

The first symbolic step to make the Calderoli bill become law is, however, a close one: 15 technical days for publication in the Gazzetta, after promulgation. The Veneto, meanwhile, has started the clock. As soon as it is published in the Gazzetta, it will send an official request to Palazzo Chigi to open negotiations for the agreement. For Zaia, autonomy 'will give a way to guarantee greater control of the efficiency of the administrative machinery and certainly defending the status quo is not a solution'. And he concluded: 'The benefits of autonomy may even be more pronounced in the territories that are currently experiencing difficulties,' thus sending a reassuring message to the southern regions.

However, the initial autonomist front - Veneto, Lombardy and Emilia Romagna - appears less compact today than in 2018. Emilia-Romagna is in a stand-by position, as seems to be guessed from the declarations of its president Stefano Bonaccini, who is ready to go to Europe. 'Calderoli's autonomy,' he explained, 'is very different from what Emilia-Romagna proposed in 2018: we were not asking for an extra euro, while applying tax residues is the antechamber to new territorial fractures.