In Italy we are reading today about a lot of discussions whether to fix the referendum date in coincidence with European elections on June the 7th 2009. The purpose: saving 400 million euros to be assigned to Abruzzo (quickly renamed Bossi-tax). Some questions arise:
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which referendum are we talking about? I live in Italy and usually read newspapers but in the last weeks I didn’t find much about a referendum to take place.
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why discussing about it?
Answers:
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Looking for some hints about referendum’s subject I found something here and there. The referendum is about our electoral system. According to referendum’s promoters the aim is to simplify our system and prevent the formation of large coalitions of parties just in order to obtain the majority bonus. We don’t want to enter referendum’s subject itself. What is quite curious is that so much attention about this referendum comes only because of discussions collateral to the importance of referendum itself.
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The only answer I can find is just a quotation by Shakespeare: this seems, as usual, a typically Italian “Much ado about nothing”. If we are to go to vote and we take into account all works and costs it implies, it seems quite obvious which is the most rational choice about dates. On all Italian headlines there are great titles about whether to assign ‘5 per mille’ to Abruzzo or whether to introduce a special tax (for people whose income is above a threshold of about 130.000 euros) for helping people hit by the earthquake. So why is still even argument of discussion the choice of a date if it can save money for the same purpose?
For what I can find out on foreign newspapers this news didn’t appear. And maybe there are grounded reasons… April the 1st has passed by and so should also its April Fool.
What is ’5 per mille’: it’s a small percentage (5/1000) of italian taxes about which each citizen can decide a special destination (non-profit organizations, cancer research centers and so on).
Elisa Camozzi
[...] Take for example what is happening in these days: for the umpteenth time we’ll be called for a referendum about our electoral system. No one was speaking about that until last week: then someone suggested to combine the said [...]