"Giorgia, turn off this blessed Instagram, I'll pop this Instagram of yours. Get to work, you're Prime Minister: disconnect from social media, pull the router and start doing something useful for Italians." This is what Italia Viva leader Matteo Renzi said in an interview at the Open Festival, currently underway in Parma. Renzi spoke at the panel "Is the broad coalition really broad?", hosted by Open editor-in-chief Franco Bechis.
The Italia Viva leader returned to the back-and-forth of recent days with the Prime Minister, starting with the proposal to abolish the car tax. "I am in favour of eliminating the car tax, it's a good idea. The important thing is that you don't eliminate the car tax and raise healthcare co-payments. If you're playing a shell game, then no," he said. The former Prime Minister then recalled having reshared on his own social media some old statements by Meloni, including those on the electoral law.
"I went to look at what she was saying ten years ago," he explained, arguing that the Prime Minister has changed her position on certain issues. "It makes me laugh that out of everything she could be doing, she comes to attack me," Renzi added. "I'm the one who counts for nothing, we're at 2%, I'm insignificant? Then let me get on with it. If I don't count for anything, just stay quiet," he concluded.
"I," he continued, "am not seeking the broad coalition's approval. I think there needs to be a centre-left capable of winning, but the broad coalition photo op isn't enough: the numbers say it's not enough." "When they thought they could do without us in Liguria they lost, when they thought they could do without us in Basilicata they lost, when they said enough with vetoes and we brought them the votes they won," Renzi argued. "The truth is that if you want to win you have to win over a slice of the reformists." According to the Italia Viva leader, votes from the reformist area "won't come by copying the ideas of the Five Star Movement." "If you are a conviction-at-all-costs type, you won't get the vote of someone who believes in due process. Within an alliance where everyone has equal dignity, there must also be room for those who believe in due process, for those who believe in Industry 4.0 and not just handouts, for those who believe in civil rights and social rights." Renzi then asserted Italia Viva's political autonomy within any possible coalition: "I don't need to appease the broad coalition. The broad coalition needs to know that on certain issues we don't see things the same way."
For the Italia Viva leader, the debate must focus above all on policy platforms: "I don't care whether the centre-left agrees with me or puts me in the photo. The question is about substance," he concluded: "are we going to help this country change?"
"Who leads the broad coalition? Does the broad coalition mean the PD, the Five Stars, AVS? But without us you can't win, so the broad coalition is something that doesn't win. Let's call it the centre-left and be done with it. We'll see who will lead it." The "real question" for Renzi is what proposals to put forward for the country, and he cited in particular the demographic crisis and the emigration of young Italians. "These are the issues I would want to talk about," Renzi added, relaunching Italia Viva's "Start Tax" proposal — a reduction in income tax tied to age, designed to incentivise young people to stay in Italy.
The IV leader then criticized the political debate focused on the future leadership of the centre-left and on the electoral law. In his view, the latter would be at the centre of the majority's attention because "Meloni is afraid of losing."
"Giorgia Meloni today is stuck and in crisis because if she goes with Vannacci she loses face, if she goes without Vannacci she loses the election. What will Giorgia lose? We'll find out in a year." For Renzi, Meloni wants to change the electoral law because "she is afraid of losing."
"When someone tries to change the electoral law, something comes along that makes the goal of victory practically impossible," Renzi said. "In Giorgia Meloni's case it's not the amendment, it's not the 'stabilicum': it's called Roberto Vannacci." "My request to Giorgia Meloni is: take us to vote in May 2027."
The issue of a possible merging of the two votes is at the centre of the political debate in recent weeks. "There are elections in Parma, Milan, Turin, Bologna, Verona, Padua, Rome, Naples, Palermo, all on the same day. Guys, on the same day in Milan we also vote for the general election, it seems normal to me, doesn't it?", said Renzi. The 2027 local government round will indeed involve numerous large Italian cities.
"We don't vote three months apart, not only because of increased costs, but also because it is more logical," added the IV leader. According to Renzi, the Prime Minister would fear a possible "coattail effect" from the local elections: "But there would be a coattail effect if she held the general election after the local ones. Holding them together, we don't know how it goes — the local election results won't influence the general election."
Renzi then took an ironic swipe at the League, claiming it would be opposed to going to the polls: "It is so terrified of the electoral result that Salvini would declare war on San Marino rather than go to vote." "Reasonably, this government has finished its term," he concluded.
Returning to the matter of the meeting at the Autogrill service station in Fiano Romano with the then DIS executive Marco Mancini and the role of Sigfrido Ranucci's programme Report, Renzi said that "this stuff will come out sooner or later, because it is evident that in that affair something doesn't add up."
"Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the scent of Ranucci," Renzi quipped, adding that "perhaps next year, when Open is again at the Festival, we will finally learn the truth about the Autogrill too." The reference is to the 2021 Report segment that showed the meeting between Renzi and Mancini. In recent weeks the affair has returned to the spotlight following the publication of a reconstruction by Il Giornale about contacts that took place before the broadcast between Ranucci, the programme's editorial team, and figures from the intelligence world.
On the thread relating to the alleged disclosure of state secrets, the Rome GIP had ordered the archiving of the case against Ranucci and the other journalists involved in 2025.
"Now I've started stopping at motorway service stations again — before I was afraid," Renzi concluded, joking about the matter.
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