Tajani claims the central role of Forza Italia in Italian politics

The center is not a non-place. Indeed, judging by the crowds, it risks becoming the most crowded place in Italian politics. The only "permanent center of gravity", however, assures Antonio Tajani, borrowing from Franco Battiato, "is Forza Italia". Leopolda's response to Matteo Renzi's offensive is without nuance: "There is only one center" and "we don't chase it: we are the center". To those who, "in good faith", had believed they would find a reformist and moderate house in the "Labour" spirit, the deputy prime minister immediately offers the keys to the blue one: "Our doors are open" to those who want to contribute to the "great popular and moderate project" of a guaranteeist, pro-European and Atlanticist party.

The dispute, however, also closely concerns Giorgia Meloni, dealing with the challenge opened from the right by Roberto Vannacci.

"The center is not a place to stay halfway: it is a culture made of family, work, freedom and sense of the State, which we have put at the center of government action", the prime minister had said early in the morning at the conference on the political legacy of the DC in Saint-Vincent. Words welcomed by Maurizio Lupi, committed to reclaiming the "leading role" of the centre, a barrier to "sterile populism".

Familiar music for Forza Italia, where however distinctions emerge on the width of the doors. Roberto Occhiuto opens them up and reverses the offensive: "I would like Renzi, Boschi, Calenda and Marattin in the centre-right", provokes the Calabrian governor. But the head of the Italian delegation in Brussels, Fulvio Martusciello, immediately places the bouncer: "A credible centre-right does not apply the logic of the transfer market", he underlines, recalling the old Berlusconi-Renzi clashes. And Maurizio Gasparri also closes: the former prime minister is the "king of the bankrupt".

Outside that house Carlo Calenda tries to build another one, alongside Ukraine. A fixed point on which, faced with Renzi's reminder of the role of diplomacy, the Action leader transforms the confrontation between reformists into a duel: "Shame on you and go to Kiev", he attacks. Civilism also moves in the undergrowth, a possible landing place for those who are looking at a Meloni bis without identifying themselves with traditional parties. In the next few hours, Sindaci d'Italia will make its debut, a transversal project of local administrators which in the statute defines itself as a "party".

A possible side of the Brothers of Italy is not ruled out.

"For now no choice has been made", specifies the president of Anci Sicilia Paolo Amenta. But, in view of the policies, a national approach "will be useful".