Twenty-five hours. That is the new threshold at the center of a heated clash in the Grand and General Council (Consiglio Grande e Generale). On the afternoon of Monday, September 21, the Chamber approved article 7 of the reform of the Council’s Rules of Procedure — the one introducing the so-called “guillotine” on amendments.
The version put to the vote was softer than the original proposal. The reference to the “second day” has been dropped: the mechanism can now be triggered after 25 actual hours of session dedicated to examining the bill’s articles, calculated from the end of the general debate. At that point, a vote can be called to close discussion on part of the amendments still on the table.
It is chiefly on budget legislation that the majority sees the need to set a limit. Michele Muratori (Libera) explains that the goal is to avoid reaching the end of the year with the budget law still bogged down in debate and the risk of provisional financial management (esercizio provvisorio) looming. Gian Nicola Berti (AR) points instead to council marathons that have stretched to 72 hours, warning of the risk that a mountain of amendments could be used simply to slow down proceedings.
For the opposition, however, the problem remains. Emanuele Santi (Rete) rejects the guillotine outright, making clear that no agreement exists with the minorities on the rule. The fear is that it will do away with precisely the kind of extended negotiation that, especially during budget sessions, has in the past allowed compromises to be found and some opposition proposals to pass. “This will mean the end of doing politics,” he summed up.
Nicola Renzi (RF) takes the same line, arguing that the majority could simply reject proposals outright without any further need to seek compromise. Matteo Zeppa (Rete) broadens the scope of the criticism: the guillotine, he notes, does not apply only to the budget but could be used on any bill whatsoever — including tax reforms, measures on ethical issues, or rules tied to the EU acquis.
Gaetano Troina (D-ML) also questions the chosen threshold: why exactly 25 hours? He raises doubts about how the rule would work in practice and what would happen to the amendments caught up in it. Matteo Casali (RF), for his part, dubs it the “save-the-Christmas-cake” rule, disputing the claim that it is really needed to avert provisional financial management.
Calls for procedural guarantees also came from within the majority. Guerrino Zanotti (Libera) considers the tool useful for ensuring the budget is approved by January 1, but insists that the government and majority must first open a genuine dialogue with the opposition, both on the text and on the amendments.
Defending the new mechanism, Manuel Ciavatta (PDCS) clarified that the 25 hours refer strictly to actual working hours spent examining the articles. The majority is also relying on the alternation of majority and opposition amendments during examination — a system introduced precisely to prevent the guillotine, once triggered, from penalizing only minority proposals. According to Ciavatta, the new system should encourage everyone to submit fewer, but better-structured, amendments.
In the end, the numbers favored the majority: the opposition’s amendments to strike down or modify the article were rejected, the majority’s amendment was approved, and article 7 was given the green light.
The guillotine thus enters the new Rules of Procedure. And it is precisely over those 25 hours that the reform’s sharpest political rift remains open.
