ROME (ITALPRESS) – “In terms of politics, it is undeniable that the government wanted to make bailouts more difficult”. This was stated by Elisabetta Piccolotti, deputy of the Left Verdi Alliance, interviewed by Claudio Brachino for the Italpress agency’s “Primo Piano” section. “I think it is necessary, politically, to take note of the fact that immigration is a structural phenomenon. If I had to say what Meloni’s problem is today, I’d say that she has come to terms with reality: first she promised the Italians that she would stop immigration, but today she is faced with the undeniable fact that it is not possible to sink boats” , explains. “People pass because they are desperate, so we have to change our approach. Structurally, the Mediterranean is the space in which very important migratory flows move, so cyclically we find ourselves faced with tragedies such as that of Cutro: it is not the first time it has happened. We hope that it will be possible to stop the tragedies but we must also know that it is possible that it will not be the last ”, she explains. “We have a problem in the countries of departure, where the smugglers and traffickers of men and women are innervated within institutions, such as the so-called Libyan Coast Guard which we even finance to keep up what look like concentration camps, to make a real massacre of people who want to leave”. The victims of the Cutro shipwreck “are almost all Afghans: it is a country that the West has invaded and bombed, they have the right to escape from the war and from the Taliban and therefore it is not clear why they have to get on these boats. There should be a channel that welcomes them” and “a sea rescue operation by the Italian Navy needs to be reinstated, something very similar to what Mare Nostrum used to be”, as well as “guaranteeing economic development to the countries from which they arrive and the migrants leave. This would require a lot of international cooperation and not a Mattei plan, which looks more like a border control operation: removing the causes of departures means trying to give everyone a minimum of stability and unfortunately we are not working on this international terrain” . Among the hot topics there is also the tax reform that the Government will present today in the Council of Ministers. “I reject it, above all nothing has been understood yet: some argue that it is a zero-cost reform but, if this were the case, the government must explain to us who loses and who gains”. The risk is that “it will turn into a gigantic favor for people who are already well and it would not be new, because this was the government’s approach also on the budget. The reform of the land registry has disappeared from this enabling law, which is instead a big issue in Italy because there are people who have houses with a very high value and pay on cadastral income like that of a house in the suburbs. Since there is so much wealth immobilized in real estate, I think we need to make a tax on millionaires’ assets and also reorder the IMU ”, he explains. “There is a great inequality on wealth taxes and whoever says ‘no to property’ wants to maintain that inequality”. The energy crisis is closely linked to the conflict in Ukraine. “We must try to dialogue with China to open a negotiating ground and ask that this negotiation be done immediately: it is the Ukrainians who need it, because they have tens of thousands of dead and it will take them years to recover from an economic point of view. Europe needs a ceasefire, it needs peace and it also needs to restart economically and therefore it must mediate between the two parties and, for this reason, it cannot be co-belligerent. This is the reason why we say ‘be careful, let’s not continue sending arms, while Europe’s approach is ‘we must send arms until victory’. Instead, “if we want the good of the Ukrainians we must ask for a ceasefire: this is the priority and I also say this to Elly Schlein, who I know is sensitive and who I hope can help the situation evolve”. On the issue of rights, Piccolotti says she is “close to all the parties that wage battles on the terrain of freedom, guarantees, civil rights and the citizenship of every subject. The pre-Elly Schlein PD was very backward on people’s social rights and also on environmental rights: very often we have heard them say that the needs of companies came before the needs of workers. The real challenge of the Democratic Party is to understand if they intend to press the accelerator on people’s social needs as well ”, she explains. Among the issues to be addressed, the minimum wage “is one of the measures that we must approve to raise wages in Italy: there are three bills”, on the subject, “we must make these three proposals the basis of a mobilization, also outside the parliamentary halls. Then something else is also needed, because the problem of wages in Italy is not only the problem of those who work with contracts that provide for too low figures: we must also raise wages in the middle class, we must intervene to reduce precarious forms of work, we must cancel all pirated contracts with a law on representation and in my opinion we also need forms of indexation to inflation because otherwise we find ourselves as we are now”. On the possibility of an alliance between the parties, as well as on the minimum wage, also on other issues, “we ask that PD and 5stelle dialogue and go together in the elections, wanting us too to be part of this alliance, because because the super-right of the Meloni is not the majority in the country. We have seen the electoral data: they have no more than 50%, therefore by organizing a camp, with a political project of redemption, we can win the elections”. – foto Italpress- (ITALPRESS).
