Veneto represent the public opinion

Today, the legislature of Veneto, Italy's fifth most populous region, voted on recognizing Crimea as part of Russia. Giulietto Chiesa, Italian journalist and writer explains why venetians have decided to vote

The  original parliament of Veneto does exist. We have 20 original parliaments in Italy, one from each region. A constitutional organ has a political validity in the region. According to our constitution, there is no possibility to call this council as Parliament. It is not a parliament, it is a region council. In general, it has no right to touch international questions, questions connected with the foreign policy of Italy. They can express their opinion they can even criticize the government, but it has no political validity. The decision of the regional council of Veneto (or Belmonte, or Biguria) they can only have a character of advice or opinion, nothing more or less.

This effort would be political. It will show the position of the majority of Venetian council. This will have, for instance, some effect. Moreover, it will have some reaction in press, in the media and so on. Each newspaper will speak about that. However, I believe, that in Italy will be no big reaction to this decision of the council. Sometimes it happens, but not for the foreign questions. That means that probably no one in the big press or television in Italy will speak about this. Because there is a very clear selection - this kind of information is not going around in the mainstream media. The most part of the Press has total consensus around the position of the Italian government.  In addition, the Italian government is going with the EU and with United States.  This means that there is no objectivity. The question of the Crimea, of the crisis in Ukraine, of Donbas has been completely cancelled from the public opinion. Nobody knows nothing about Crimea. Every newspaper, every TV channel are repeating the same thing: Russia annexed Crimea, Russia made an illegal act from the point of view of the foreign policy. If the regional parliament will say, even with the majority of votes, that this is a bad decision, they will ignore it. This is the situation. There is another point to precise - the majority of the regional council of Veneto is in opposition to the government. There are many deputies from the "Northern League", that is an opposition. There is a group of deputies from the former party... It has a political significance. From this point of view, some newspapers will speak about that, telling that there is some kind of a cry to win the equal position against the government in Rome.

The third point is that this initiative can have some effect on the parliament, because in Veneto there are many members of the senate and lower chamber. That means that this group of deputies can decide to open the new discussion in the Italian parliament on that point. This will have some effect. If this discussion will be transferred to the Italian Parliament, this will have some effect. Adding to this point, last week I was in Crimea with delegation of members of Italian parliament. There were three members of the senate and one member of the lower chamber. They are independent; they had seen the arising situation. They came back this morning. On the press conference, they will repeat that they will ask for the beginning of the discussion in the foreign section of the Italian senate. This can create the adding of the initiative of the regional council of Veneto and could create some movement inside the party. This will be significant.

Veneto represent the public opinion. The most part of the entrepreneurs, of the businessmen in Veneto are against sanctions. They are seriously suffered according to the Italian press, only Veneto has lost in last 6 months 1.5 billion Euros. This is a big damage for a region. This economic situation is very important for all Italy. That means, certainty, these members of the regional council are acting because there is a pressure of the public opinion. In general, this public opinion is very large almost everywhere in Italy, where we exported agricultural products in Russia. We had lost all this market. This is a great damage, and people do not like that.