Politics & Power Quote by Romano Prodi

It’s the kind of sentence politicians reach for when the room smells like revenge: a preemptive disavowal that quietly acknowledges how tempting vengeance politics can be. Romano Prodi’s line is built on a double move. First, he stakes out moral high ground by rejecting “punitive” lawmaking, a phrase that invokes the abuse of the state’s coercive power. Then he narrows the sin further: not just harsh policy, but politics as “vendetta” - a word loaded with Italian cultural and historical resonance, suggesting personal feud dressed up as public duty.

The intent is less kumbaya than strategic inoculation. Prodi is signaling to opponents, institutions, and wavering moderates that he won’t turn the machinery of government into a settling-of-scores operation. In an Italian context - where prosecutions, media wars, and parliamentary maneuvering have often been interpreted through the lens of personal rivalry (think the Berlusconi era’s constant debate over “ad personam” laws) - the phrase reads as a coded reassurance: my reforms may bite, but they’re not designed to punish you.

The subtext, of course, is that punitive law is on the menu somewhere, being demanded by allies or the public. By denying vendetta, Prodi implicitly concedes the charge’s plausibility. The rhetoric works because it appeals to a liberal-democratic norm (law as general, not personal) while leaving him room to act firmly. “Not vengeance” doesn’t mean “not accountability”; it’s an attempt to define the coming fight as institutional, not personal.