National anthem is played, and the Northern League “go for a cappuccino”

The session of the regional council began with the notes of Italy’s national anthem, but also with disagreements and cutting remarks, almost entirely within the majority coalition. The session on Tuesday 15 March, two days before the national holiday on 17 March, began, as the council itself had decided, with the Italian national anthem. And this will be repeated for the whole of 2011. Northern League councillors warned that they would be absent (“We’ll go for a cappuccino at the bar,” they announced), and, for the record, they were also absent during the minute of silence for the victims in Japan. The ruling PDL and the opposition parties were all present. The governing committee, with regional president Roberto Formigoni, were also all present, as was the council chairman, Davide Boni (Northern league, ed.).

And it was between Formigoni and Boni that the disagreement arose. Formigoni said that “seventy seconds of the national anthem does nobody no harm. Let’s not forget that Lombardy had an important role in the unification of Italy, and made a great contribution, also in blood. Our region is the driving force of Italy, we see ourselves in this country, which must increasingly become a leader in the world.”

Formigoni’s presence in the chamber certainly did not go unnoticed (as he had missed numerous sessions, ed.).

“I stayed in the chamber only out of duty” Boni explained, “but my feelings were with my colleagues in the League. There was one positive sign, though: Formigoni and the whole council (with the exception of the League) were in the chamber for the anthem. So, I expect to see them at all of the 2011 sessions.”

Paolo Valentini, leader of the PDL replied to Boni. “We in the PDL would probably have had the same, great feeling, if we had had the chance to see the entire group of the Northern League, all together.”

For League councillors, the decision to play the anthem is still wrong. “I don’t think this initiative will help to resolve the problems of the people of Lombardy,” Boni continues. “At the end of the term, I’ll have councillors who know the anthem by heart, but who know nothing about the problems our people have to face. I thought the unification could have been celebrated differently, with cohesion, not with this kind of confrontation.”

Of course, the actions of the League were not appreciated by the opposition parties. According to Gabriele Sola, of “Italia dei Valori”, “their behaviour was just tiresome and unnecessarily provocative.”

And the Democratic Party head, Luca Gaffuri, focused attention on the absence during the minute of silence. “This is a nasty chapter in the history of the regional council; the League’s propaganda ended up by ridiculing the national anthem, and by failing to give the due respect to the tens of thousands of people who died in the earthquake and the following tsunami. Those empty benches speak louder than a thousand words.” The councillor from Varese, Alessandro Alfieri, also talked about the episode on his blog, where he also comments on the “unusual” presence of Formigoni in the chamber.

According to the leader of the Union of Christian Democrats, Gianmarco Quadrini, “In any case, the people who support the independence of Padania are an isolated minority, because most of the councillors, who represent the people of one of the most important regions in the country, stood up proudly to sing our national anthem.”