He used words as a foil, irony as a lethal weapon. Emilio Lussu, the Captain, loved to be understood. In those austere as well as imposing parliamentary halls his witty and cutting voice stood out among the enemy's benches with brilliant anecdotes and similes.
Lussu has the right
It is late spring when the President of the Constituent Assembly pronounces the fateful sentence: «The Hon. Luxurious He has the faculty ». The agenda is not a party for separatists: "Draft Constitution of the Italian Republic". It is late eighteen on May 29, 1947 when Emilio Lussu takes the floor. In the sacred text of the future Constitution we must defend the inclusion, in the new republican order, of the special autonomies, those that theoretically should attribute to Sardinia, Sicily, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Val d'Aosta and Trentino the "advantages" necessary for rebalance the geographical, cultural, infrastructural, social and economic gaps.
Shrewd irony
Lussu, in what will become one of his most shining parliamentary speeches, will appeal to all his shrewd irony to demolish his opponents and defend what he himself does not consider, however, the best possible result. He is realistic and does not give up: he tries to the last to raise the bar of autonomist claims. To make the bitter enemies understand that the "concession" of the "Specialty" was "nothing" compared to what was due, he stands out, on the opposite side of the hemisphere, the affirmation that will mark the "pseudo federalist" passage of the nascent Constitution .
Lion & cat
Lussu is severe and ironic: «I say federalism and not, as I should, autonomism, to indulge those unitarians who consider our autonomism as a sub-species of federalism more or less disguised. I say frankly; go for the subspecies of federalism; but without a mask. These autonomies of ours can fall within the great family of Federalism, just as the cat falls within the same family as the lion ». The parliamentary stenotypist records the exact phrase, immortalized in the history of lack of autonomy and notes in brackets (laughs). The Captain of Armungia is far-sighted, he knows that that feline parallel arouses irony, but that it represents reality plastically. History will prove him right. Imagine if he had witnessed yet another state blitz carried out last Friday late in the evening when the voracious "hand" of the north of the country slipped into a key document of the government's programming an annotation capable of breaking through the coffers of the state and transforming the "cat "Of Lussu in an unsuspecting" mouse "destined for a given sacrifice.
The Nadef train
The name of the measure is not a hymn to sympathy: «NADEF, Update Note of the Economic and Finance Document 2021». It is the instrument with which the government transmits to Parliament the economic picture of the country from which the numbers for the new budget maneuver are deduced. If the accounts recorded in the note are good, there will be more money, if they are bad it will be tears and blood. It is, therefore, a key document from which the economic policy of the Draghi-branded executive derives.
The voracious "hand"
It is for that reason that the "little hand" of the North has acted with the usual swashbuckling ruthlessness by adding in the last hours, before the deliberative meeting of the Ministers, an annotation that risks wiping out the Special Autonomy of Sardinia and beyond. Twenty-four hours before the meeting of the Council of Ministers at Palazzo Chigi, the text of the provision, which we reproduce in the documents, had as its first provision linked to the approval of the 2022-2024 Budget that relating to the «framework law on disabilities». The joint and underground operation, undeclared and underhanded, deals the "blow" just before the vote of the ministers.
The "blow" to the first point
The first point of the provisions connected with the Budget appears point blank: "Bill - Provisions for the implementation of the differentiated autonomy referred to in Article 116, paragraph 3, of the Constitution". In practice, the "coup" of the North that claims more autonomy, powers and above all money, a lot of money. All to be taken from the fund of the state rebalancing, what “would be”, conditional of obligation, had to serve to rebalance the disadvantages between the Special Statute Regions and the Ordinary Regions. The blitz is as heavy as it is silent. The update note, modified with respect to the original text, is published for the weekend directly on the website of the Ministry of the Treasury. Palazzo Chigi left his fingerprints in the final text, but he preferred that the body of the snatch be kept in the ministry of "money", that of Economy and Finance. After all, that rule to be submitted to Parliament is entirely financial. With implications, however, heavy on the constitutional level. What had been averted until today, since the referendums of Veneto and Lombardy had claimed more autonomy and money, now risks finding a shared and transversal path precisely due to the varied composition of the parliamentary majority.
The "differentiated"
The summary of that provision inserted with priority one in the update note of the Def is simple: the three economically strongest regions of the country ask for a "differentiated" autonomy, also provided for by the Constitutional rules, but which would end up canceling, canceling and overcoming the already feeble "autonomy of the cat" that would have the bad end of being literally canceled by the roar of the "lion of the North". At this point, however, an unprecedented constitutional vulnus is added. In practice, with an ordinary law, the provisions of Article 116 of the Constitution would be canceled, which provides for a "specialty" reserved for border and island regions.
"Advantage" cleared
That constitutionally recognized "advantage" would end up being canceled out and outclassed by the recognition of greater powers and more resources in the Northern regions. The difference that the Constituents, with all the limits referred to by Lussu, had recognized to the Special Regions, starting with Sardinia, the only one to suffer the measurable weight of insularity in terms of economic development, infrastructures, rights and powers, would disappear. If the Northern Regions take ten steps forward, the special Regions, Sardinia first, will be reached and even more outclassed, in terms of powers and resources, eliminating the constitutional differential that should have helped to balance the gaps.
Dragons docet
The decision of the Draghi government to effectively endorse the differentiated autonomy for three northern regions, Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia Romagna, is the beginning of the end of the Sardinian autonomy and of the constituent ambition to provide greater regional specialties strength to try to alleviate the gap with the ordinary Regions. The "hand" that introduced that provision among those connected to the State Budget knows well that the political and institutional situation is the most favorable: Draghi is the meeting point between strong powers and transversal majorities, therefore, the most suitable one to propose the constitutional forcing that effectively eliminates autonomist specialties. The result is obvious: not only will the differences and gaps between Special and Ordinary Regions not diminish but, with this real autumn blitz, they will become irrecoverable and incurable. Just think of the resources that will flow into one of the cornerstones of the future: the school. The effects will be disruptive: the “Regions-States” of the north to which differentiated autonomy is recognized will have absolute powers and funds necessary for a higher level school.
School in reverse
In this context, Sardinia will have an increasingly poor education, with an increasingly inadequate school. The best trained doctors will be in the North, at the expense of poor universities located in Sardinia and in weak regions. The risk is real: a school that will train better in the north than in the south. One part of the country, the North, with the sixth gear and another, Sardinia and its insularity, only with the reverse. The discriminating principle will be strengthened more and more in health care, that of series A in the north, the poorest one in the Isola dei Nuraghi and in the south, as well as for transport and infrastructure. In Lombardy and Veneto 8-lane roads are being planned, in Sardinia and in the South many primary arteries are one and a half lanes and even mule tracks.
Goodbye "specialties"
All this with a further discriminating element towards Sardinia which risks being doubly penalized: the reasons for the "specialty" of the island, compared to all the other four special regions (Sicily, Friuli, Val d'Aosta and Trentino), have reason to exist precisely because Sardinia is a border territory but also, and above all, because it is an island, furthermore ultra-peripheral. A theme that, albeit with all limits, the constituent fathers, even under the pressure of men of the caliber of Emilio Lussu, had tried to recognize as constitutional rights and which today, however, risk being canceled with a swipe of the sponge across an ordinary law.
Rights, not favors
There are no favors at stake, but the recognition of the sacrosanct rights of Sardinia which, as we can clearly see, from transport to energy, are not part of the state agenda. Instead of taking a step forward compared to everyone to make up for gaps and disadvantages, Sardinia with this blitz risks being sacrificed on the altar of the strong powers and of the Northern Regions. The "cat" of Lussu, in the presence of the northern lion, now risks ending up like the mouse, crushed by the interests and greed of the state.
Mauro Pili