Mattarella calls for a curb on national days

President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella has sent a letter to the speakers of the Chamber and the Senate calling for restraint in the establishment of new national days. The move comes immediately after the promulgation of the law establishing the National Paper Recycling Day, signed by the head of state despite the reservations expressed in the text of the letter.

In the letter, Mattarella provides a numerical picture of the phenomenon: in the last three legislatures, thirty-six laws establishing national days have been approved, and twenty of these date back to the current legislature alone. The overall count, excluding actual national holidays, rises to fifty-one days dotting the Italian civil calendar.

The President of the Republic points out that this proliferation of observances entails an organizational burden falling on public offices, schools and, in some cases, universities, which are called upon to arrange events, communications and dedicated educational activities for each newly established date.

The letter follows a path already traced by other interventions from the Quirinale on the quality of legislative output, but here it takes a direct form: an explicit appeal to the speakers of the two Chambers, that is, to the bodies that actually approve this type of law, often through simplified procedures and broad cross-party consensus.

The issue of national days, although it may appear marginal compared to the major economic and international issues on the government’s agenda, touches on a recurring point in the debate on Italian legislative output: the ease with which Parliament approves symbolic laws, against the backdrop of a system that struggles to untangle more complex matters. Mattarella’s request has no binding value, but it comes from an institution that can only promulgate laws or send them back to the Chambers, not amend them: a limitation that makes the letter a tool of moral suasion aimed directly at those who write and vote on the laws.

It remains to be seen whether the call will be followed up in the next parliamentary session, since at present there are no legislative initiatives to introduce a cap or a filter on the proposal of new national days.