Meloni challenges the left and appears at the congress of the largest union in Italy

Giorgia Meloni has a clear plan: to rule for a long time and win the widest possible spectrum of voters.

To do this, defying the hostilities that she was going to face, she appeared this Friday at the congress of the majority union of the left, CGIL.

It was about important days, the new secretary general had to be chosen.

A moment in which the entire progressive orbit looked towards Rimini, the city on the Adriatic coast where the entire family of the left met.

Even representatives of other countries attended the event, such as the second vice president of the Spanish Government and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, the sensation of the event.

And it was also the debut of the new head of the opposition in Italy, the brand new secretary of the Democratic Party, Elly Schlein.

But Meloni, as on other occasions,

He also wanted to appear in that photo and place his speech for the workers.

Causing, by the way, that a part of the assistants left the room with their fists raised and singing the partisan anthem

.

Meloni loves those situations.

And she took advantage of it to start defiantly, as the prime minister always does.

“Some said that I would not come for fear of being whistled at, this, the protests.

Listen, I've been whistled at since I was 16 years old.

I have the order of merit in that matter, ”she ironized.

“But today is March 17, National Unity Party.

The day on which the statutory birth of our nation is celebrated.

And here the president of the council of ministers has been absent for 27 years.

With this presence, this debate, today we can truly try to celebrate national unity.

Because unity is not annulling opposition, which has an educational role for any community.

Unity is the superior interest, the common destiny that gives meaning to the opposition”.

Giorgia Meloni, during the act in Rimini this Friday.

DAVIDE GENNARI (EFE)

It had been 27 years since any prime minister attended and spoke at the CGIL congress.

Maurizio Landini, her outgoing secretary, called her a few weeks ago and invited her to the appointment.

"The union talks with everyone without prejudice," he told her to convince her that it was a sincere proposal.

The prime minister meditated on it and decided to accept.

Only three predecessors had taken part in the 18 congresses held by the CGIL throughout its history: Giovanni Spadolini, Bettino Craxi and Romano Prodi.

But it was about another era, in which the union was an essential interlocutor for any government or party that wanted to have a voice in the world of workers.

The arrival of Matteo Renzi in 2014, who had a deep confrontation with the unions, confirmed the disconnection that other prime ministers later maintained,

Meloni's political project in Italy involves achieving a position of hegemony in the conservative world.

But also to consolidate the advance of a certain right in the world of workers.

And he demonstrated it on the platform, accusing the group of radicals that stormed the union headquarters two years ago as “extreme right”.

The leader of Brothers of Italy, who at that point drew applause from the public, wants to complete the journey that Matteo Salvini's League began a few years ago towards the workers' vote and take advantage of the audience offered by the congress of the largest Italian union, with almost 5.2 million affiliates and 1,000 delegates present at the event.

She did so in order to defend her tax reform and to oppose, among other things, the introduction of the minimum wage.

A measure that, in reality,

The union itself has changed a lot in recent years.

In fact, Landini was already the first secretary who did not come from the Communist Party or its embers.

His orientation is on the left, of course, but a spectrum that must now be extended to parties such as the 5 Star Movement and, increasingly, to populist formations of a social right, as the Brothers of Italy were for many years.

Now, however, Meloni wants more and his speech this Friday, much more liberal, left no doubt.

“Italy is the only country in the EU that has lower wages than in the 1990s.

And that means there is an emergency.

And that the recipes used so far have not worked.

We must imagine a new path, aim at economic growth.

And the challenge is to put these companies and workers in the best conditions to create that wealth”, he pointed out.

Workers, yes.

But also entrepreneurs.

To those who have already convinced in other types of congresses to consider it the new reference in the economic and business world.

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