"The first applause we want to send today is to President Sergio Mattarella to whom we confirm gratitude for the high service he is rendering to the country. The second applause is for a man who is fighting with a grit, tenacity and strength that many of us political opponents admire amazed and moved and therefore a big hug of healing to Silvio Berlusconi". This was stated by Matteo Renzi, leader of Italia Viva, in his opening speech of the national assembly underway at the Maritime Station of Naples.
Renzi also asked for "a third applause for our friends from Romagna who are holding their own for their character, strength and extraordinary quality and because they feel the weight and affection of the whole country. To Bonaccini and to all the people of Emilia-Romagna goes a big hug and we ask the Government to appoint the commissioner soon and not to prevaricate, appoint whoever they want but do it quickly".
THE ASSEMBLY OF ITALIA VIVA
"Before starting our assembly, we must pay tribute to Naples, the champion city of Italy. If you didn't have a Tuscan on the bench, you couldn't do it anyway." This was said by the leader of Italia Viva, Matteo Renzi, opening the national assembly at the Maritime Station of Naples.
"Our thesis - said Renzi getting to the heart - is that the Meloni Government will not be sent home evoking the drama of the controls of the Court of Auditors or the martyrdom of Fabio Fazio or will not be sent home asking for the patrimonial or insisting on the citizenship income, which is a battle against sense and against time, but building the reformist alternative, pressing them by explaining that on keywords such as taxes and work they are not there". "The media reports of an authoritarian government, but of what? This is not an authoritarian government, it is an unrealistic government, it is not fascist, it is undecided about everything. It should not be exposed to European controversy as a government leading us to an authoritarian drift. Here there is a country that is at a standstill, which is totally immobile with respect to fundamental choices and there is a ruling class of government that said it was ready to change everything and that instead is uncertain and somehow inconclusive".
"This date becomes the horizon of our journey. Saying '365 at dawn' means not only turning the hourglass and starting to put ourselves in view of the European election campaign, but telling why we want to do it and why we think that the alternative is really the reformist alternative". So the leader of Italia Viva, Matteo Renzi, opening the national assembly of the party in Naples whose title is '365 at dawn' referring to the date of the electoral round for the renewal of the European Parliament scheduled for June 2024.
"There is a double option - continued Renzi - the right of Meloni and his allies and therefore a sovereigntist option, and on the other this new old populist option that assumes on the one hand the contours and boundaries of the M5S with Giuseppe Conte and, in light of a surprising result of the PD primaries, the new PD led by Elly Schlein. Our horizon - he concluded - is to be able to bring a political reflection on these issues without being trivially mediocre as unfortunately often is the Italian political debate and beyond".
"Reformist friends, the new Democratic Party claims to be able to give you citizenship the abjuration on the season of reforms and they tell you that if you want to stay in that house you have to eat everything. Those who today have the courage within the reformist area of the Democratic Party to whisper words that sound like a failure to distance themselves are immediately labeled as the enemy".
"Dear Elly when you have taken the next elections, it takes a year and you can do it, 41 percent, when you have won in 6 thousand municipalities out of 8 thousand, 17 regions out of 20, when you will have the opportunity to govern a country by building laws from social to economic that, like it or not, have marked the history of the country, So I am available to come on TV, to tell you that I did not understand anything and that you are right, but until then have respect for those who brought that political community to those results".
"In front of this right and this left, there is a political space that must be filled with organizational needs and with political reasoning: we have the duty to wrest the words 'security' and 'taxes' from the right and the words 'work' and 'culture' from the left, or rather from their respective propaganda". "For the political design of Renew Europe I am available and I will be willing to take a step back. The political objective is to avoid the slide to the right of Strasbourg." Renzi recalled that in the general elections last September, "I took a step back to build the Third Pole in the general elections. Today I do not know if and how it will be possible to resume this journey at national level but I say that this is not the point under discussion: what must be clear is that our desire to go all together to the European elections is a desire that moves from political considerations". Renzi stressed that "what I am not willing to do when they ask me is to give up the Leopolda as a political moment. I will never give up the Leopolda because they ask you and we do not renounce spaces of freedom. I can take a step back, but I won't ask you for that step back."
