There are 55 proposals on the institutional platform that contains the signatures. In which the imagination indulges. From the abolition of the local police to the creation of a high court.
There are those who ask to abolish the local police, those who have vaccination obligations, who would like to establish a higher high court even to the CSM. And, again, who would like to rename the Chamber of Deputies in the “Chamber of Deputies and Deputies”. Waiting to find out if the referendums of 8 and 9 June will reserve surprises – if anything, the fateful quorum of 50 percent of the voters should be achieved – with the repeal of the laws at work (four questions) and on citizenship (a question), it is rather curious to immerse yourself in the world of all those who are collecting signatures to arrive a day, perhaps not far away, to the nth.
For heaven’s sake: we are talking about a sacrosanct prerogative of our democratic system and the only way for the citizen to exercise his power in direct form. The doubt, however, is to understand, for example, how much sense to collect signatures to abolish the local police. It looks like a boutade, but it’s all true. According to the promoting committee, the municipal is “divided between hundreds of autonomous local authorities, generating duplications of structures and public expenses” and is “linked to local politics”. It is therefore true, therefore, to eliminate it, repealing the “law-quadro on the ordinary system” (n.65 of 1986).
Do not think, however, that it is an isolated case. At the moment in the institutional platform that lists all the collections for signatures for repeal referendums or for popular initiative laws there are 55 proposals. One of these aims, for example, to a greater “internal democracy” and “transparency of political parties”. So, at least, it is written in the title. Too bad, then, that to scroll in detail the proposal is also discovered that the exhumation of “direct public funding for activities relating to participation in local, regional, national and European political elections would also be expected.
Those who want to make hunting illegal could not be missing. In this case, the signature collection started on March 13, 2025, but we are still far from the quorum: 22,339 signatures collected on 500 thousand signatures that would be used to ask the Constitutional Court for the referendum consultation. But in this case there is a rather singular peculiarity: the promoting committee, the “respect for all animals” Committee, has already tried to collect adhesions to ban hunting, intensive farms, circus activities and animal experiments. All legitimate, we would miss it. But even then – and we are talking about even a year ago – the signature collection had stopped at 40 thousand. Today, therefore, we try again. With a curious addition: the movement has also launched a petition to repeal the new highway code wanted by the Minister of Infrastructure, Matteo Salvini. What has to do with animal welfare, it is difficult to understand it. The #permiofiglioscelgoio committee, on the other hand, aims to repeal the vaccination obligations wanted by the then health minister Beatrice Lorenzin. The promoters are beautiful fierce but also in this case we are light years away from the threshold of the 500 thousand signatures to be collected (we are about 20 thousand adhesions) considering that the deadline for delivery is set to the next June 15. Yet, browsing the site, there are not few supporters of the Committee. They range from “free lawyers” to “democratic financiers”, from the “people of mothers” to the “monetary rebels”, up to “Else Service”, which would seem to be a simultaneous translation service, and to “Radio Roma TV”.
But the world of potential referendum is even wider. Because there are, then, the local referendums to perhaps ask for the passage of one municipality from one region to another. As is happening in Isernia, the smallest province of Italy (78 thousand souls) of the smallest Italian region (Molise, less than 290 thousand inhabitants). In this case the signatures have already been collected and now the response of the Constitutional Court is expected. The request is dry: we got tired of being Molise, we want to enter Abruzzo. We will see.
However, it did not end here. Because if this is what they manage to mature committees, organizations and various citizens, often it is not better in parliament. Deputies and senators, in fact, only in this legislature presented 135 proposals for constitutional reform which, as known, even if they were approved, have once again needed the referendum approval. But what are we talking about, in detail? Of a little bit of everything. The pentastellato Giorgio Fede, just to say, would like to modify article 31 of the Constitution to protect the elderly more; The Melonian Tommaso Foti, on the other hand, wants to include a specific on “food sovereignty” in the paper; Marco Lombardo (action), again, wants to insert more checks in the count of the votes after the elections “to guarantee the integrity of the electoral process from interference of foreign states aimed at manipulating consent through production, promotion and dissemination of false or distorted information in violation of the rules on propaganda and political communication”. You never know. The case of various ladies who have asked, with different proposals, is also curious, a “modification to article 111 of the Constitution regarding the recognition of the function of the lawyer and the protection of freedom, autonomy and independence of his exercise”. They range from the dem Anna Rossomando to the Leagueist Erika Stefani, passing through Devis Mori (Green-Administration alliance). Although they are at the antipodes, they have something that unites them. The profession: lawyers, precisely.
And then, again, there are those who ask to insert the protection of the sea into the Constitution, who a specific focus on sporting practice, who the house as a “residence of the family”. And who wants, however, to establish new bodies such as a high court that pronounces for example on the CSM. On the other hand, however, there are also ladies who want to eliminate institutional bodies. This is the case of Matteo Renzi, who presented a law to abolish the CNEL (he had already tried when he was a premier with a referendum and we all remember it as it went), and Luigi Marattin who would like to abolish the Senate, create a single -camera system and rename the “National Assembly” Chamber.
But there are those who went even further. It is the dem Antonio Girelli. For him everything should remain as it is. Except for the name of Montecitorio: no longer “Chamber of Deputies” but “Chamber of Deputies and Deputies”. Because it would promote “already through the name of this branch of Parliament, a concrete gender equality”. Today between Montecitorio and Palazzo Madama women are only 200 in all of 600 seats. It can be enough to change a name to change things.
