From day one, Italia dei Valori has not wanted to participate in the Bassolino Cabinet. As you know, they were all competing for a cabinet position, and now I don’t know how many are at Poggio Reale instead of at the Region Headquarters.
We have always wanted to make a mark and the sense of discontinuity, because we believe that in that reality there is above all the need to give back transparency to the institutions with a general change over of the generations.

Whether or not Bassolino likes it, Bassolino on a personal level will sort out his affairs in front of the judges, but on a political level, after having been Mayor and the President of the Region for so many years, his political responsibility is objectively such that it is necessary for him to stand down, because a relationship of trust has broken down. He says he needs to deal with the rubbish, but he should have been dealing with it for 20 years, he doesn’t have to remember it now that he is on trial. It would have been better if he had done it earlier.
I believe that in Italy there is the issue of the South, but also of the North. As Minister of Infrastructure, I have tackled it and I want to continue to tackle it because if we go to the South there are so many problems connected above all to jobs, to employment and to the future of youth, but if we go to the North there are big problems connected first of all to the defence of the world of the economy and of the system of the companies that make Italy great.
I believe that it is the issue of the North and the logistics that is needed by all this enterprise system. This is the reason why I have committed myself, while receiving a load of criticisms from the maximalist left and others, about the corridor number 1 and the corridor number 5 and the Trieste-Divaccia.

Infrastructure is not damaging to the country. It’s damaging if it’s done badly, if it’s not useful and when it has exorbitant costs, but infrastructure that is done well helps the environment, increases the economy and the possibilities for the country. The TAV is nothing other than a rail system that allows for the transport of goods that now goes on lorries on a train, going through Europe and Italy fast, safely and with less pollution: this infrastructure helps the environment. With the policy of “not doing” there’s damage to the environment and to the State finances ten times greater than with the policy of “doing”.
We, of Italia dei Valori want, and we want it strongly, to win the elections together with the Democratic Party and Veltroni. We, of Italia dei Valori feel like those on a boat that is rowing to bring the model for reforming the management to the other side of the river. It’s no good asking us: “will you or won’t you get to the other side?”. To everyone, I say “concentrate on rowing, and don’t be looking around to see whether or not you will get there, because that way you definitely won’t.”