Since Giorgia Meloni took office at Palazzo Chigi on October 22, 2022, receiving the handover of the bell from one of the most talented chicks to emerge from the Goldman Sachs brood, Mario Draghi, the Prime Minister (in the masculine, as she prefers to be called) has remained stubbornly steadfast and immovable, following the advice of her mentor, who had created the conditions and prepared the office for her. ---- The Draghi government, which preceded her, had carefully prepared the groundwork for the right to take over the country: this operation was skillfully conducted, managing to gain the consensus of all the "left" parties, captivated by the so-called "Draghi platform," a nonexistent political and financial plan never admitted by its owner, which consisted solely of placing a garrison of the far right in government, tasked with steering the country to the right by managing the modernization of the institutions. The unstated, yet real, goal was to modernize the state and constitutional order, starting from the assumption of the ineffectiveness of parliamentarism in managing decision-making processes, in a world where increasingly rapid decision-making procedures are required, to manage the transformation of the Republic into a democracy.
Therefore, the incoming legislature was supposed to focus all its energies on three reforms: the premiership, which would bring with it a reform of the government leadership, through the direct election of the Prime Minister, thus removing the current role of the President of the Republic; the dismantling of the balance of power, reducing that of the judiciary; and regional devolution, so as to weaken the unnecessary powers of the central government in managing the country and especially the economy. These objectives were embraced by the Meloni government and constituted its program. To enable the execution of the plan, the outgoing government prepared a financial law that would constrain future policies and left its own finance minister, who was externally directed, on guard.This choice allowed for relative economic stability, allowing the executive to eke out a living, touting the prospect of fiscal consolidation, stability, and the recovery from the infringement proceedings, so that it could regain control of its ability to incur debt and thus distribute benefits. The government improved the primary surplus but consigned the country to inaction. At the same time, the plan gave the executive free rein over civil liberties and the restructuring of relations between social classes, allowing it to exploit security, presented as a social emergency, fueling fear of immigrants and xenophobia in the country, depressing wages, even at the cost of worsening the living conditions of the most vulnerable segments of the population, restructuring the distribution of income among the various social classes and components, transforming the country, rediscovering fascist-style corporatism, revisited and modernized, within the framework of a close alliance with national and international financial capitalism.
By remaining immobile, the government should have as it did ensure social stability and ensured control over social forces, so that the process of stripping the country's remaining founding industrial assets could be completed without excessive social resistance (e.g., the dismantling of FIAT and the slow demise of Ilva). This process was initiated in the 1990s by Mario Draghi himself with the auction to the highest bidder of postwar Italian industry and the economy, especially state-owned holdings, in the luxurious salons of the Britannia, rented for the purpose.
Mission partially accomplished
The Meloni government was diligent and sought to complete the task assigned to it. It began with differentiated autonomy, capitalizing on the ineffective opposition of the self-styled reformist left, still reeling from the electoral defeat; Fortunately, the government's success was limited by the Constitutional Court, which proceeded to dismantle the inconsistencies of the legislative reform piece by piece, identifying violations of the Constitution and effectively pushing the measure onto a dead-end track.
The government took the hit and convinced itself it needed to change horses, choosing judicial reform, which seemed one of the easiest to achieve, banking on the discredit of judges, fueled by their actions. But since the Constitution was directly involved, it was more than legitimate to call on citizens to defend it. Resources from civil society were the primary focus, with the political parties following suit. In an overwhelming and unexpected way, the referendum overwhelmed the government. At this point, especially considering that the legislative session is drawing to a close, the prime minister's flagship reform seems to have definitively become one of the prime minister's impossible dreams, and we trust it will be definitively destroyed. This belief is fueled by the fact that when the attack on the Constitution is clear, citizens mobilize, and thus the task to be completed is arduous. However, experience teaches us that we must be vigilant and prevent further attempts, so as not to incur voter fatigue. Therefore, to prevent a further deterioration in the population's living and working conditions, a change in the country's political management is needed, taking advantage of the general elections scheduled to be held at the end of the legislature in about a year.
A review of the government's actions
Despite remaining inactive, the government has increased taxes by restructuring tax rates and taking advantage of rising inflation. Thus, the very limited growth in nominal wages, due to the much-vaunted partial fiscalization of social security contributions, has been largely absorbed by the inflationary mechanism and the instrumental use of taxation. Another effective approach would have been to restructure taxation by making it truly progressive, as per the Constitution, and by taxing large incomes and large fortunes, perhaps even by imposing, even purely from the perspective of applying progressivity, a significant tax on the highest incomes, applying at least the same rates to incomes as those applied to employed workers. Today, Italy has the highest taxes among the EU countries.
The diversion of the country's meager resources to finance war and rearmament has further depleted welfare funds, resulting in a marked overall deterioration in healthcare. This has been offset by economic and financial privileges for private healthcare, which is increasingly opening up: reduced funding for elderly care, the closure of daycare centers, the lack of housing provisions, and social support measures for the poorest segments of the population. In return, repressive laws are proliferating against those who resist, demanding the right to housing and healthcare, and engaging in social struggles and mobilization. These laws also increase penalties for those who fight to achieve these goals, through the introduction of ever new social crimes into the penal code. The government has distinguished itself in the education sector by investing in the failing Made in Italy high school, which has remained deserted. The very few new resources allocated to schools have been channeled into this institution, while overall the allocation for this expenditure item has been plagued by continuous cuts that have compromised its functioning. The school system has not even been helped by providing for routine maintenance of school buildings, not to mention teacher salaries, which have stagnated and are decidedly inadequate for the new demands of retrained teaching, partly due to technological innovation and the training needs of new professions and new skills.
The dismantling of productive assets has been pursued with determination, leaving hundreds of corporate crises unresolved, increasing the use of redundancy payments (Cassa Integrazione Guadagni, the cost of which, let us remember, is borne by workers), and failing to stimulate any investment that would open up new opportunities for the country's industrial activities. Proof of this is the policies pursued regarding the automotive and steel production sectors, given that all activity in the chemical and countless other industrial sectors has long since disappeared from the country, also as a result of the closure of markets caused by sanctions imposed left and right, but not on Israel, which expelled itself from many markets, and the lack of any industrial policy by the government, a factor that recently even sparked protests from Confindustria.
What can we say about the government's agricultural policy? It has taken a passive stance toward the European Commission's decisions to reduce EU funding for the agricultural sector, thereby diverting funds to finance the Ukrainian war and rearmament. At the same time, it has rashly signed up to Mercosur, underestimating the impact on the agricultural sector, which will be further penalized given the consensus for Ukraine's immediate accession to the European Union. This will lead to the release of low-cost produce onto the agricultural market, grown on land heavily polluted by the war, with serious consequences for everyone's health, and prices made even more competitive by the future channeling of EU funding to Ukraine for reconstruction.
It is also worth noting that all this is occurring at a time when 500,000 young people, educated by the national school system, leave the country every year, going on to strengthen and enrich other economies and accentuating the country's demographic desertification. It is this migration that the government should have addressed, rather than doing everything to demonstrate its inability to manage the country's desperately needed labor and population migration in a regular and humane manner. Instead, it chose to stubbornly carry out the failed investment of deportation to Albania, to manage the immigration flows decree with a complete failure to address the needs and professional configuration of demand, leaving numerous productive sectors uncovered, and to continue fueling the black market for labor, thus keeping it constantly fueled, regardless of new arrivals, with police measures that push many back into illegality.
https://www.ucadi.org/2026/04/19/la-donna-immobile/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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