Salvini, facing the Pontida test, reiterates his stance on pensions and security
The restrictions imposed by his allies will prevent the League leader from calling for the expansion of the ‘Safe Roads’ initiative from the stage on Sunday, as he would have liked. However, Salvini will reiterate his proposal to repeal the Fornero law, allowing people to retire at 64. And he will renew his call to combat the ‘pseudo-green ideology of Brussels’.
Key points
Matteo Salvini is aiming to arrive at the Pontida event on Sunday without any protests and with the Lega’s colours clearly visible within the government. ‘No foreigners allowed’ is the slogan chosen for this year’s event, the first without its founder Umberto Bossi, who died on 19 March. And there will be no foreign guests, apart from an anticipated message from Spain’s Abascal of Vox, on Ceuta.
Salvini’s priorities
“The focus of the day will be on pensions, young people and security. We won’t be talking about philosophy or anything else,” explains the League’s secretary, focusing on concrete issues to galvanise the League’s supporters, who are grappling with plummeting poll ratings and internal party strife. The constraints imposed by his allies will prevent the League leader from calling, as he would have liked, for the expansion of the ‘Safe Roads’ operation from the stage, increasing the number of military personnel patrolling roads, squares and stations to 10,000. However, Salvini will reiterate his proposal to repeal the Fornero law, allowing people to retire at 64. And he will renew his call to combat the ‘pseudo-green ideology of Brussels’. A battle that led him yesterday to announce that at the next Council of Ministers meeting he will table a decree to postpone the ‘senseless ban’ on Euro 5 diesel vehicles until the end of 2027. Not to mention the aim of extending the exemption from vehicle tax beyond 80 kW.
The standoff with the governors
The gathering in the small town in the Bergamo valleys – which last year featured Roberto Vannacci among its key figures – comes after weeks of tension between the secretary and the party’s northern faction. In response to the demands of the northern regional governors (Attilio Fontana, Massimiliano Fedriga, Maurizio Fugatti and the former governor Luca Zaia), who have been pressing for months for a collegial leadership of the Carroccio and greater focus on northern issues, the secretary has expressed his willingness to call a truce, drawing up a joint policy manifesto with greater attention to the North, autonomy and the regions. And by sharing responsibilities in the run-up to the elections. With him, however, at the helm. Consequently, there does not appear to be much scope for the request – reiterated by the governors during their latest face-to-face meeting last Thursday in Milan – for a federal party structure (modelled on the Bavarian CDU/CSU alliance, proposed by Zaia at Pontida 2025). “We face such significant international challenges that we cannot afford to have parties within parties,” Salvini said yesterday, speaking on ‘Mattino 5’, effectively closing the door on the idea.
The Association for the North
For the time being, therefore, the League’s regional governors will focus on setting up a Northern association within the League to revitalise federalism and the demands of the business community. “The Northern Association? We’ll set it up, just like the Central and Southern associations, because every region has its own needs,” confirmed Lombardy’s President Fontana, who in recent weeks had not ruled out the need for the secretary to step aside.
The set list
In any case, the fear of boos and protests is hanging over the hours leading up to the event. The line-up of speakers has not yet been officially confirmed. It is unclear, for example, whether Zaia – who is no longer governor – and Massimiliano Romeo, the group leader in the Senate and a critic of Salvini’s nationalist-sovereignist line, as well as the author of the book “Fare la Lega – An Agenda for Renewal’, which did not go down well with the party secretary. So much so that rumours of his replacement as leader of the Lega senators have become increasingly persistent. These rumours were subsequently denied by the deputy secretary Claudio Durigon, the plenipotentiary for central and southern Italy, who told Sky Tg24: “Romeo has been the group leader, is the group leader and will remain the group leader. He is doing a good job; as for the approach to changing things within the League, I see it differently from what is in a book. We will also have a calm discussion with him, and it will be at the Pontida meeting that we will address this in the right way for the good of the party.”
