Security returns to being a disputed flag in the center-right. The League is agitating it the loudest, asking "immediately" for more soldiers to guard the streets, squares and stations, thus strengthening the 'Safe Roads' operation which today has 6,800 soldiers.
But minister Guido Crosetto doesn't agree and replies sharply: "As long as it's not just for 'aesthetic' reasons to show some camouflage on the street." In an articulated post on X, the minister and founder of Fratelli d'Italia slows down. And it refers to a defense reorganization law, indicated as a tool to make the use of the military against crime "legally possible".
But the Carroccio does not give up and, referring to Crosetto, calls for a turning point "as early as next week" and "not with an 'aesthetic' presence", but with "thousands of trained and armed boys and girls who could leave the barracks and support the police".
In short, in a note, Matteo Salvini's party sees an opening in the defense clarification, but glosses over the sector reorganization law cited by Crosetto. The minister proposes it as an alternative to the resolution that the Northern League has been brandishing since November, to extract a commitment to strengthen the operation. After months of standby, he is now pushing for it to be voted on in Parliament.
A pressure that, perhaps, was useful: on Thursday the motion will be on the agenda of the Chamber's Defense commission. "Let's hope it's the right time", comments the Northern League member Eugenio Zoffili who leads the League in the commission. And he adds resentfully: "Enough excuses and imaginative reconstructions" citing "official documents and correspondence" in support of the stalemate.
But the tug-of-war over 'Safe Roads' is nothing new. For months it has divided the majority, especially Lega and FdI. And partly Forza Italia which in the past distanced itself from the Northern League and now refers to "a technical question", as long as "the military is not distracted too much from security in general". The Northern League, on the other hand, insists that the number of soldiers deployed in the cities against petty crime rise to 10,000.
It quantifies the "uncovered" provincial capitals as 61 and indicates the necessary expenditure as "109 million euros per year". In the meantime, the defense reserves remain. The minister tries to clarify: to those who accuse him of being against he reminds the genesis of the 'Safe Roads' operation: "We gave birth to it, against everyone and everything, with La Russa as minister, Cossiga (son) and me as undersecretaries". And he points out that "it was not born as we would have wanted it, but with a thousand constraints" that is, "bureaucratic and legislative constraints, logistical and ordering problems, for training and equipment".
Hence his counter-proposal at the time: "enlist 10,000 more carabinieri, who are Defense but with all the powers of the police force". Regardless of the outcome of the resolution in Montecitorio, security remains a hot topic and probably functional for the League. Not only with the aim of regaining consensus, but also to overcome internal frictions, driven by the northern fringe supporters. It is no coincidence that in view of the next event on 20 September on the Bergamo meadow, the party is raising its tone and expectations: "It will be "a Pontida of battle", it announces in its newletter. Together with this year's eloquent slogan: "Foreigners do not pass".
