The Regional Council of Veneto is set to debate from 10th to 12th June on the adoption of two bills intended to hold non-binding referendums on Veneto's future. One proposal wants Veneto to hold a vote on independence, while the other one is proposing a referendum on enlarged autonomy. This was decided by Veneto Council's group leaders earlier this week. The groups have chosen to hold the debate after next month's European election.

The non-binding referendum on independence is a proposal by Regional Council member Stefano Valdegamberi (Popular Future party), which had first been debated last September. Both Valdegamberi's party and Veneto President Luca Zaia's Venetian League-Northern League then argued that the Regional Council should approve calling the vote. The decision was finally postponed. Until now.

In contrast, the vote on enlarged autonomy is a 2013 November proposal by Constantino Toniolo, a Regional Council member for the New Centre-right (a splinter party of Silvio Berlusconi's right). According to Toniolo, Italy should work as a federal country, and one way to do this is by giving further powers (including the management of taxes) to regional governments. Toniolo warns that the alternative to this is independence.

Thus, Toniolo's proposed non-binding referendum includes five questions. "Do you want Veneto to become a region with special statute?" is one of them. The others revolve around economic and fiscal issues: particularly, they would be asking citizens if they want at least 80% of the taxes raised in Veneto to be managed by Venetian authorities, therefore not being transferred to Rome.

The Italian Republic has currently two kinds of regions: on the one hand, ordinary statute regions, and on the other, autonomous regions with special statutes. The latter group enjoys a greater degree of autonomy and includes Aosta Valley, Trentino-South Tyrol (divided into two de facto autonomous provinces), Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Sicily and Sardinia. Veneto has an ordinary statute.

Zaia travelling to Rome to seek special statute

Zaia is travelling next Monday to Rome, as he will be participating in the conference of presidents of regions, where he will voice the claim for autonomous status for Veneto. He will do this after the Regional Council has passed the relevant request, without even waiting until an eventual referendum (as proposed by Toniolo) is held. Veneto councillors are indeed in a hurry: Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is driving a constitutional reform that will cut powers to regions with ordinary statute, and therefore will re-centralize some powers. "The old Roman dinosaur is coming back", as Zaia graphically puts it. And Venetians do not want less powers, but more of them.