Short week at the Chamber, Ciriani's proposal to cancel Friday sessions opens a new front between FdI and Lega

If the opposition is disunited on many issues, things are no better in the Meloni majority. There is no shortage of battlegrounds between Fratelli d'Italia , Lega and Forza Italia , with the latest controversy of the day triggered by the rush forward by the Minister for Relations with Parliament, Meloni's Luca Ciriani .

The proposal is as simple as it is controversial: cancel the sessions of the Chamber on Friday mornings , a day usually dedicated to urgent questions and normally very little attended, except for urgent measures.

Hence Ciriani's idea of ​​a "short week" for the deputies of the Republic, with urgent questions brought forward to Thursday , as happened until 2008, except for emergencies. For the minister, it would not be a day less of work, but rather a way to improve the work done in the Chamber.

The proposal of the exponent of Fratelli d'Italia has made his fellow members of the majority, the Lega Nord, turn up their noses, to put it mildly. It is no coincidence, as Repubblica reports, that already on Wednesday the president of the Chamber, the Lega Nord's Lorenzo Fontana , in the group leaders' meeting had postponed Ciriani's proposal to a date to be determined.

“For us the issue does not exist – Lega sources reported to Repubblica – also because very often work is done on Thursday afternoon in the chamber, so there would be no space and we would have to go on Friday anyway”.

The opposition is also against it. From the Democratic Party, the Democratic group leader in the Chamber Chiara Braga speaks of an “ unacceptable proposal ”. Parliament “already limits itself to discussing only government acts, now they also want to reduce the time of the work. Many proposals from the opposition have been blocked for months, without any discussion. If the majority has no content to bring, let those who do have it make room. Reducing the sessions is a signal that we believe is profoundly wrong: an insult to those who work every day”.

The unusual common front between the League and the Democratic Party has therefore pushed Ciriani to backtrack, speaking in an interview with Corriere della Sera of “hypotheses, made on the sidelines of the group leaders’ conference”. “ It certainly wasn’t a way to work less . On the contrary,” Ciriani said. “There will be a lot of work to do in the coming weeks. We have five new decrees to convert into law, under penalty of expiry, some by mid-August at the latest. So I can already say that at least until August 8th we will work at full speed, without defections or wasting time”.