Protests in the Senate for the Italy-Africa Conference that will take place on Sunday 28 and Monday 29 January at Palazzo Madama. As requested by the executive branch. Italia Viva and Avs dispute the decision to host the major event at a parliamentary venue in a letter to President Ignazio La Russa. They express a dissatisfaction that has so far only manifested itself in the hallways but has never been officially revealed.
“Why hold a government event in the Senate hall, considering that the Palazzo Madama has been the highest legislative assembly since ancient Rome?” Enrico Borghi and Peppe De Cristofaro (Avs), leaders of the IV and Misto factions, write and insist: “ Why is the seat of one of the two factions of Parliament used for an event from which senators are excluded, as if it were no longer the seat of all the elected representatives of the sovereign people? The Palazzo Madama is the home of parliamentarians and the government can only be guests due to a separation of powers that has never been questioned since Montesquieu. And often the form is the substance.” They therefore suspect that it was some kind of unusual interference on the part of the executive, which could have instead taken advantage of the Farnesina headquarters, as originally suspected.
As far as we know, the letter received due attention from President La Russa, who called a presidential council to illustrate the program. The participants report a short information event at which none of those present raised any objections. La Russa reiterated that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had requested the hospitality and that for reasons of space and security, around 160 journalists would be allowed. The area around Palazzo Madama will be heavily armored and will be entirely a red zone. The doors were closed to senators, with the exception of the group leaders and probably the members of the Presidential Council and the Foreign Affairs Commission, as requested by Borghi and De Cristoforo in the letter.
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