Don't minimize referenda result - Renzi (2)

(ANSA) - Rome, October 23 - Ex-premier and Democratic Party (PD) leader Matteo Renzi said Monday the referendum "result in Lombardy and above all in Veneto musty not be minimized. The message is serious: they're asking for more autonomy and efficiency, greater fiscal equity, a fight against waste at the central and peripheral level. The correct way to face the future, for me, is not just the Constitution's article 116 as the governors want (also in Emilia Romagna), but to realise that in Italy there is a huge fiscal question. The real priority is this: cutting the tax burden". The governors of Lombardy, Roberto Maroni, and Veneto, Luca Zaia, want to at least halve the difference between what they pay in taxes and what they get back. This difference is 54 billion euros in Lombardy and 15.5 billion in Veneto, according to the Italian media. The governors also want control over 23 policy areas to be returned from central government to the regions.