Interview
Schlein: ‘We are once more the party of labor’
We spoke with Democratic Party leader Elly Schlein outside the floor of Chamber of Deputies: ‘The government is “stable” in the sense that it doesn’t do anything, it doesn’t disturb the markets. She has become the queen of austerity.’
Elly Schlein left the Chamber of Deputies floor after a sharp back-and-forth with Giorgia Meloni during premier time last week. Sitting on a small sofa for an interview with il manifesto, beneath portraits of former Presidents of the Chamber, she is still in fight mode:
“With all the lies and propaganda, Meloni has built herself a fantasy world: if something goes well, it’s to her credit; if it goes badly, it’s someone else’s fault. Healthcare waiting lists are the fault of the regions. The fall in industrial production is the fault of the Green Deal and the EU. The failure of the migrant centers in Albania is the fault of the judges, not of those who failed to read the rules before acting. But after almost three years, this little game no longer works: Italians are not fools. The truth is that they have failed to hire any staff in the healthcare system – the only way to shorten the waiting lists. Spending as a share of GDP is at a record low, and that is the real emergency, felt even by the people who voted for them, no matter how hard they try to erase it.”
The premier claims the stability of her government is itself the main economic reform they have carried out, and which has been rewarded by the spread and the markets.
The government is “stable” in the sense that it doesn’t do anything, it doesn’t disturb the markets. She has become the queen of austerity. She began cutting welfare even before the awful Stability Pact that she accepted without saying a word came into force. As for wages, I’d like to remind her that 4.5 million people in Italy are working poor – above all young people, women and those in the South. ISTAT is saying it, not the PD: in March real wages were eight points lower than in 2021. Unfortunately, the right has a poor relationship with data and reality, just as it has with cultural freedom and critical thinking.
On the floor, Meloni claimed once again that the crisis of the automotive industry is the fault of green policies.
This government cut the funds for the automotive industry by 80 percent and, on an ideological whim, ditched the Industry 4.0 plan, which drew criticism from none other than Confindustria. Spain has the Green Deal too, but its industrial output – cars included – is doing better, as are wages, which rose after Sanchez increased the minimum wage by 50 percent. Here the government has made work more precarious, with vouchers and the liberalization of fixed-term contracts. In Spain, like in Portugal, they also decided to intervene to keep energy prices down.
Meloni said she agrees with decoupling electricity and gas prices.
And yet she doesn’t do it, because she doesn’t want to touch the windfall profits of the energy companies. She lacks the courage for it, so she punishes families and all other businesses. When a government wants to act, it doesn’t need to wait for Brussels.
Could the June referendums be a push towards change, starting with labor issues? An IPSOS poll says that one month out, 32–38 percent of Italians say they intend to vote. That’s not a low number at all.
Italians can still surprise us, as they did in 2011 when water as a common good was on the ballot. Now there is a chance to change laws, fight precarity, improve workplace safety and recognize citizenship. We are working hard to get greater participation; I’m feeling positive signals, even though the government is trying to silence the referendums and public broadcasting is engaging in a blackout because they fear high participation. That poll says PD voters are the most committed, at over 90 percent, but interestingly, 30–40 percent of center-right voters also plan to vote. Those numbers tell me it’s possible to reach the quorum. Salvini said he will stay with his children instead of voting; we will go to the polls so his children too can have less precarious, safer jobs.
Some observers are saying the PD under your leadership has become a mere mouthpiece for the CGIL union, a sort of overturning of the past: that you are no longer an inter-class party.
I am proud that we are once more the party of labor, standing among workers at the factory gates, where the PD had long been absent. That is part of the mending I was given a mandate for in the 2023 primaries. Spain’s economy is doing better because they tackled the real issue that some are pretending not to see: precarity is bad for growth, it stops people from building a future. The idea of raising productivity by shrinking wages and protections has failed. That seems crystal clear to me.
However, the PD did believe in that recipe for years.
So did much of European social democracy. Now I am seeing new awareness and a new direction, leading to positive social and environmental results, as in Spain.
A group of reformists in the PD are saying they won’t vote on the three labor questions in the referendums. Does that worry you, do you think it will lead to higher abstention?
The PD line is clear and was unanimously approved: we are for five “yes” votes (translator’s note: to all five referendum questions). Stefano Bonaccini himself has urged people to vote in all the referendums.
On Gaza, Meloni said no to sanctions on Israel or to recalling the Italian ambassador, heaping praise on her government’s diplomacy. At the same time, she called the situation in the Strip “dramatic and unjustifiable”.
I agree with Angelo Bonelli’s reply in the Chamber: this is rank hypocrisy. The government was already very silent until January, and after Trump’s inauguration it became entirely mute. Next week Parliament will vote on the motion we submitted with M5S and AVS calling for a ceasefire, the release of the hostages, unhindered aid to Gaza, sanctions on Netanyahu’s government, suspension of the EU–Israel cooperation agreement – violated by the far-right Israeli government – and recognition of the State of Palestine. What matters today is not boasting that you sent a little aid, but ensuring food, medicine and water finally reach civilians in Gaza. The UN says hunger is being used as a weapon by Netanyahu, while the Meloni government is numb to these crimes.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/schlein-il-pd-e-il-partito-del-lavoro-meloni-regina-dellausterita on 2025-05-15