ROME -- Summer has arrived at the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Parliament, which is due to shut up shop until September 12, giving hard-working Italian MPs a record breaking 40 day summer holiday, the longest ever vacation yet to be enjoyed by the dedicated tribunes of the people.

 For Senators in the upper house, the break will extend to September 13, while a small number will have to return on September 5, when the work of some commissions is due to resume. 

 As the Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano expresses, the particularly lengthy summer break from parliamentary affairs has brought into question the productivity levels of the Chamber of Deputies, who will be off duty for a considerable amount of time during a crticial period of the parliamentary calendar.

 The break, which is one week longer than the average over the last few years, has been granted despite a considerable backlog of motions still to be discussed.

 The last motion scheduled to be discussed before the summer break, one requesting the arrest of Gal Antonio Caridi for heading an ‘Ndrangheta branch, has now been put off until September. 

 The same goes for the reform of the justice system, which will not be voted on before the holiday period, as well as the law ruling against torture and the discussion on legalising soft drugs. Laws on cyberbullying and adoption will also have to wait until September. 

 Meanwhile, the referendum on constitutional reform could in theory be put off until Christmas. After the Supreme Court decides if the signatures requesting it are valid, the government will have 60 days to instigate it, after which it will have another 50 to 70 days to hold it. 

 A poll carried out by 'Open Polis' has also revealed details on Parliamentary absence and productivity. Results show that the most absent MPs are Antonio Angelucci, Marco Martinelli and Rocco Crimi, all representatives of Forza Italia, while the three most present, Cinzia Maria Fontana, Giuseppe Guerini and Tino Iannuzzi, all belong to the Democratic Party.  jp-se