ROME - With the latest Prime Ministerial decree regarding the measures for reopening expected on Wednesday, there are still several disagreements between the government and the regions on the measures to be adopted.

  The Minister for Regional Affairs Mariastella Gelmini, speaking on RTL 102.5’s ‘Non Stop News’, explained that the principal object of discussion, the curfew, will remain at 10 p.m. because they “have listened to the CTS [Scientific Technical Committee].” The government are “confident that the correct behaviour will bring us to changing it from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m., and then to midnight, and then scrapping it, but we don’t feel it is right to say when.”

  Massimiliano Fedriga, Eugenio Giani and Stefano Bonaccini, the Presidents of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna respectively, have been asking the government to delay the curfew to 11 p.m. to allow more time for restaurants and bars which will be allowed to be open (only outdoors) also in the evening in yellow zones.

  Gelmini has anticipated that 11 more regions will move to yellow, a move that is “a conquest by the Italians that have made sacrifices, but we need great care, the virus is invisible but it has not disappeared.”

  On the subject of the decision which emerged yesterday of gradually bringing children back to school (with in person teaching in secondary schools still having to be less than 60%), Gelmini said, “it is not backpedaling.”

  “The government wants to reopen schools, we will do it and we aim for 100 percent in person teaching, but there is a problem regarding transport, that the previous government forgot. We’ve organised a meeting with Minister Giovannini [Enrico, Minister for Infrastructure and Transport], the regions and local bodies…. The government has chosen a deep discontinuity with respect to the previous government, we don’t charge the responsibility on local bodies, but share it with them. In the month, month and a half, that remains until the end of lessons, we will be able to reopen, but we are already working on the reopening in September in complete safety.”

  Another subject of discussion in government is the ‘green certificate’, which will allow a greater degree of freedom for individuals who have proven a negative test or vaccination. The government is working to introduce something along these lines, with a possible announcement expected in the next Prime Ministerial decree, though a few regions, including the autonomous province of Bolzano, have decided to breakaway from the national plan in attempts to accelerate their own version.

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