Lega Congress, Salvini: "We patriots". Garavaglia: "We have some champions"

Salvini: "We patriots because this EU must be changed"

"After a year of debates not on issues but on the person, I ask my community if I should continue to be a secretary: I ask you, not in the newspapers", said Salvini, opening his speech. "Now some people turn up their noses because we are patriots but we are because this EU needs to be changed from top to bottom", he also recalled, "it's just an enormous burden. We are David against Goliath, the little ones against the big ones". Then a promise: "This congress, if you re-choose me as secretary, will give me the mandate to go to the Council of Ministers to bring the League's clear position: we cannot continue to send money to Ukraine".

Garavaglia: "I'm running to reverse the trend, we need to wake up"

"Why did I stand as a candidate? Because the objective is to reverse the trend, we must wake up", Garavaglia said in his speech. "The polls are indications, they give a direction. We got 8.8% in the elections and we didn't grow. We have to grow - he added -. I don't think a measure in the budget law is enough, we scrapped it but nothing has changed. We have to reawaken the dream and we all have to do it together". In the League, he recalled, "we have champions that everyone envies us. If I were to win, I want these champions at my side, and in front of me: Zaia, Durigon, Giorgetti, obviously Matteo Salvini. We have the champions".

On the first day, the political secretariat of the League was given the go-ahead

Meanwhile yesterday, Saturday 24 October, the amendment to the League's statute was approved by acclamation and a show of hands which introduces a political secretariat which will be made up of a maximum of nine members appointed and revoked by the federal secretary who must be an expression of the national, regional and local levels. Another approved amendment provides for the figure of the federal coordinator of the regional secretariats, who "can participate in the work of the federal and regional Council with the right to speak - as Calderoli clarified - and monitors their behavior".

The tensions over Romeo

But the first day was also marked by the internal tensions that emerged towards Massimiliano Romeo, secretary of the Lombard League who was most exposed, together with Attilio Fontana, in asking for fresh air and an expanded team. In his speech, Senator Marco Dreosto, regional secretary of the League in Friuli, quoted the group leader Romeo, recalling the work done together at Palazzo Madama and then landing the blow: "You cannot question a secretary for what are internal personal diatribes, transforming them into a national debate". Romeo tried to defend himself and then counterattacked: "The problem is not within the League but it is the people outside who no longer vote for us", he said. "No one has ever questioned the gratitude to our secretary and none of us has asked for a congress. I have never challenged anyone and I have never asked Salvini to take a step back". Then he insisted on his way out: "Why can't there be a group of governors who have a particular appeal next to the secretary?". He will not leave the party, he assures, but there are few who openly defend him. Attilio Fontana is there, and shares with him the accusation of a shift to the right of the party, which "is not part of our DNA".