24 January 2007

Transparency in the Council of Ministers

Starting this week I have decided to refer to the citizens the decisions taken at the meeting of the Council of Ministers with a film clip published on YouTube.

Transcript:
"Today, Friday 19 January there has been the second meeting of the Council of Ministers this new year.
Normally, the meeting of the Council of Ministers is held every Friday morning and it's a good thing that those who participate tell the citizens and the public about what has happened, what we have done, what we have decided so that there is complete transparency in the decisions that we have taken.
The functioning of the Council of Ministers is as follows: on Tuesdays or on Wednesdays, there is the so-called pre-council in which the technical structures, our cabinet offices, legislative offices, and chief administrators get together to discuss on a technical level the measures that are to be adopted at the forthcoming meeting of the Council of Ministers.
At the end of the discussion it's possible to arrive at a technical division and thus an item is inserted into the agenda classified as Type A, or if there is no agreement at a technical level it is inserted in the agenda as Type B. In the Type B agenda items there are also those measures that need political decisions.
Today there were a number of measures on the agenda of Type A: the appointment of a Prefect, of a Quaestor, of an Ambassador, of a top level director and decisions that relate to certain interministerial decrees to be activated.
Then there were measures needing political decisions: for example, we took two important decisions, one relating to agricultural policy, the other regarding the application of the Constitutional reform by the Centre Left in 2001, the so-called federalism reform including the fiscal reform.
This measure was presented by the Minister of Regional Affairs, Linda Lanzillotta; on this measure we Ministers had already been in consultation with groups and individuals and with Ms Lanzillotta in the last few weeks. It is a reform, I dare to say, worthy of Copernicus, because it sets out that from now on there is a single decision unit for the measures that are discussed to shorten the time frames, to give responsibility to people to not fragment the decisions and in the area of all this what relates to a town or city will be decided by that town or city, what relates to a Province will be decided by that Province and so on.
Today there is too much legislation about competing "competencies" and this prevents a final decision. With this reform we are intending to facilitate rapid and sure responses. It is a draft law that will go to Parliament for discussion and it will put into effect another important chapter of the Constitution.
Today we also discussed certain incentives for agriculturalists who invest in products that could be useful for the production of alternative energy, for example biomass, and so as to be able to generally relaunch productivity and quality.
I believe that these are 2 important measures.
At the CIPE {Comitato Interministeriale per la Programmazione Economica} an organism of the President of the Council, dealing with decisions relating to the economy, we had to decide about the refinancing of the Mestre by-pass and the financing of the new Asti-Cuneo concession. We put off the decision to next week because last night, the relevant Trades Unions asked us to first approve the regulation coming before these interventions and they asked for their voices to be heard so that they could express their opinions on the issue.
We are still within the time frame, because we have to decide before the end of the month and the next meeting of the Council of Ministers is 26 January and the discussion is one of the cardinal points that the Centre Left wants to use for going forward.
So there you have a glimpse on a day with the Council of Ministers, the type of decisions that are normally made and as you can see it is not only a venue for disaccord and lack of understanding, but a place of work where people try to do their duty with all the good faith possible.
In this spirit I want to keep you informed week by week about what we are deciding, so that citizens may be informed about what is happening in the "other part" of the room."

Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Information