26 August 2007

Bossi’s rifles

Umberto Bossi’s call to arms aimed at the people of Lombardy who are tired of paying taxes is not acceptable, but this is an opinion that can be taken for granted. There will be the usual uproar and then after that the rifles will be used just for going hunting.
What is worrying is that statements that are obviously against the law are considered just common occurrences, accepted and commented upon as a fact, and that those who represent the citizens, on the right as on the left, can do this even without risking a fine. It is a signal of the disintegration of the State.
The federalist episodes, like the requests by the towns to transfer to the Autonomous regions, to the Aosta Valley to Trentino, are symptoms that require careful attention, symptoms of separateness from the State that is seen just as a tax collector. The centrifugal forces that exist also in the South, can no longer be underestimated.
The answer is not a return to small States and tiny States, nor is maintaining the status quo. The State must become lighter, as regards structures, costs, organisations; it’s necessary to go from a phase of talking about federalism to a real phase of allocating competencies to the territory; the wealth produced must remain as far as possible with the ones that produce it. These steps are necessary so that Bossi’s declarations become a pistol loaded with blanks. To dodge this could turn out to be very costly to the State and to the Italians.

Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Politics