Mattarella to the Chambers: "Limit the number of national days"

The President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella promulgated the law on the "Establishment of the National Paper Recycling Day", attaching a letter to the Presidents of the Chambers in which - in the introduction - he explains that he has followed up on the request "as there are no unconstitutional aspects" but nevertheless pointing out "that the number of laws establishing days to signal values, events, intentions, emotions or aspects of life is increasing dramatically, without any homogeneous criteria having emerged in this regard".

Mattarella's warning

"In the last three legislatures, thirty-six have been approved - by establishing the relevant days, of which twenty during this legislature", underlines the head of state, warning that this has an "increasingly difficult, even improbable" impact on the tasks required, for example, of schools. "In addition to national holidays - he explains - the number of these days is now fifty-one: most of them - with a standardized formula - involve the promotion of initiatives by public offices and bodies, particularly schools, and sometimes also universities, providing that they carry out educational or dissemination activities on the topic of the individual law".

The President of the Republic explains: "Among this high number of dedicated days there are some that carry out a significant task of remembrance or message of values but not all of them appear to have the same caliber. Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly difficult, even improbable - he highlights -, to require that schools be able to carry out all the tasks entrusted to them by these numerous and different legal provisions, unless it is thought to affect, by reducing it, the time actually allocated to the teaching of school subjects. I therefore feel the need to urge to contain in reasonable terms, the tendency to increase the dedicated days, the number of which, moreover, now makes it substantially impossible in practice for the authentic effectiveness of their provisions, which could be adequately pursued by means of instruments other than the law".