Parliament, what doesn't work

Parliament

The nineteenth legislature will officially begin on Thursday 13 October, when the first session in the Chamber of Deputies will be held. And while everyone is focused on the list of ministers that Giorgia Meloni will submit to the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, a series of apparently "technical" issues that could negatively affect the work of the two branches of Parliament, disqualifying ( and much) the work of the elected and the elect. Problems deriving from the combination of a bad electoral law, the infamous Renzian-made “Rosatellum” and the cut of parliamentarians strongly desired by the 5 Star Movement. Problems that probably had to be solved before the dissolution of the Chambers by intervening on the regulations but which remained - along with much, much more - unsolved.

The parliamentary committees The women elected

The parliamentary commissions

The cut of the deputies and senators (the former go from 630 to 400, the latter from 315 to 200), reduced by a third compared to all the assemblies that have alternated since 1948 to date, will heavily affect the composition of the commissions in the two branches of Parliament. Commissions which - it must be remembered - are fundamental for the carrying out of the work because it is in those offices that the laws that then arrive in the classrooms are discussed and amended. Deputies and senators appointed in the commissions will have to deal, among other things, with the update of the document on economics and finance (Def), the Budget Law, the bills passed by the previous government that will expire, the opinions necessary for implementation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (Pnrr).

At Palazzo Madama, where the regulation has been modified, the commissions go from 14 to 10: foreigners will be merged with defense, the environment with public works, industry with agriculture, I work with health care. Nothing happened in Montecitorio, where, due to a series of crossed vetoes, the same was not done causing a dangerous misalignment between the two classrooms that could slow down the work, at least until the new council for the regulation, which will head to the next Speaker of the House, will not give the same scissor. Estimated time frame: end of 2022, with works already in progress.

Another major issue will be the quality of the work of the new elected officials, especially in the Senate. Many groups including Action-Italia Viva, Forza Italia, Movimento 5 Stelle and Lega, will have two senators for each commission, translated: many more competences discussed and amended by far fewer elected officials. This will inevitably cause an aggravation of the work for the technical offices of the ministries (which risk a "funnel" effect) and for the inspection unions (the bodies that certify the validity and conflicts of competence of the texts presented by parliamentarians). In short, what should have streamlined, risks further burdening an already slow institutional system, slowing down the discussion of the laws.

Then there is the problem of bicameral commissions: Copasir, Rai Vigilanza and Antimafia will have to schedule the their sessions avoiding overlapping with those of the permanent commissions and, obviously, with those of the two classrooms. A difficult joint in the "short week" that has always characterized parliamentary work and even in this case it could further slow them down.

Elected women

Giorgia Meloni will be the first woman to lead a government in Italy, but as has been pointed out by many, the next Parliament will be the one with the least presence of women, reversing a trend of growth towards the coveted gender equality that lasted for over twenty years. Of the 600 seats assigned between Montecitorio and Palazzo Madama, only 186 will be occupied by women, just 31 percent of the total. A marked decrease compared to the last legislature, the one with the most elected in the history of the Republic, where women were 334 out of 945, or 35.3 percent.

To do better than all the Action- alliance Italia Viva with 46 per cent of women elected: a good percentage but on a small number of elected representatives (14 women out of 30), therefore very little influence on the total calculation. The 5 Star Movement is also doing well, reaching 45 per cent (36 women out of 80), the Democratic Party is badly, which stops at 28.6 per cent (34 women out of 119) and the Green-Left Italian alliance, with the 31.3 percent (5 out of 16 women). The rights are very bad, where the highest percentage is reached by the "small" Noi Moderati with 33.3% (3 women out of 9), followed by 31.6% by Forza Italia (19 women out of 60) on 31, 5 per cent of the Lega (30 out of 95 women) and 27 per cent of Fratelli d'Italia (50 out of 185 women).

Also in this case, the conjunction between the bad Rosatellum and the cut of the parliamentarians are damaging. In fact, the law provides for the technicality of multiple candidacies, which have been used "skillfully" by the parties to put men in better positions than women. Although the price lists provided for gender alternation, most of the leaders, that is, the only certain (or almost) elected officials placed by the secretariats, were men. And if on the right the accusation is sent back to the sender by waving the banner of the national Georgia, in the excited national leadership of the Democratic Party, which faced the usual analysis of the defeat in a first debate that lasted "just" ten hours, the female question is that which most animated the discussion together with the stainless "we must start from the places of discomfort".