For a comment on Mr. Blair’s visit to Mr. Berlusconi at Villa Certosa tomorrow, see today’s (15 August) Independent on Sunday or click on
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=551531
For a comment on democracy, click on:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/big_question.shtml
Silly season: the smells and (non-wedding) bells.
Ferragosto is a good moment to leave the affairs of state and turn to serious holiday matters. There are a couple of suitable stories, one which shows how much Italy has changed especially in the south and the other which shows how much further England has to go towards European integration.
A long time ago, Lawrence Durrell wrote a sketch of diplomatic life called “If garlic be the food of love” about the havoc that an innocent bulb could cause in Her Majesty’s Chancery in some farflung land. It was a time when most Britons would have suffered Dracula’s teeth rather than risk continental tastes and smells.
Today, we are all men and women of the world, with every Sainsburys, Tescos and Waitrose overflowing with sun-dried tomatoes, pesto, Parma ham, Umbrian virgin olive oil and a full cornucopia of Italian goodies. The British by now know what these things taste and smell like so for London Transport to spend £100,000 presenting Italian produce as examples of smelly food was first of all ignorant even before it was offensive. The poster campaign showed clearly marked Italian products to try and persuade Londoners not to eat smelly food on the tube. London Transport said if was supposed to be “lighthearted”. The Italian ambassador and Chamber of Commerce were not amused.
Even worse than British intelligence which only presumed there were WMD in Iraq without having to look for any at home, Ken Linvingstone’s London initiative completely ignored the chemical weapons which are openly deployed throughout the city every day. In past times, it was mutton and cabbage which assailed the innocent abroad in a London street. Today it is fried chicken and hot dogs; the chicken, poor creaturetakes its revenge for a short and batteried life by making passerby nearly throw up with its odour. The oil it was fried in was once (probably) an honest corn oil, hardly perfume when fresh but worthy of Ypres in 1915 after a week’s frying. As for hot dogs, the less said about them, the better.
While we’re on the subject of city fragrances, London can be a particularly dangerous place during a heat wave like now when the natives love to strip off. The British relationship to modern sanitary appliances is much like the Italians towards banking; they invented them but have not updated them since. And they use them as rarely as Italians use banks.
In Italy, in contrast, if you can avoid the exhaust pollution, the smells are perfumes from fresh pizza to vanilla and cinnemon; even the frying and grilling never seems to linger beyond the mouthwatering phase.
This is the Italy that Ken should emulate not ignorantly pillory.
If Britain still has some way to go to European olfactory integration, Italy has taken a step towards the rest of the world, and not in the right direction.
Time was that just about everything in Italy was linked with politics… except sex. Many politiicians no doubt sublimated their natural instincts; many clearly did not but neither were the subject of comment far less resignations.
A story from Cosenza in Calabria seems to be bringing the south into tabloid mainstream. The city’s unmarried mayor declared a fortnight ago that she was pregnant but that she would continue in her job. She did not name the father. Two days later, a fellow city councillor and local leader of the DS told the press that he was the father, that he had confessed to his wife and children and was in a state of turmoil. Her first name is Eva and his surname is Adamo so you can imagine the headlines.
Gone was any hint of high southern drama, today’s cavalleria urbana has no challenges, no duels (apart from long-distance sniping between Adam and Eve in newpaper columns); instead it is a story of a self-confident post-feminist professional woman and a vulnerable and clumsy male upstaged in the media and in his amours. Eve has sold her story to the downmarket gossip weakly Gente and has written a public letter to her son due in January and is compiling a dossier on the affair, evidently with some pride. Adam has resigned as councillor and will no doubt go into analysis.
The final curtain has not come down yet and while it is progress that the drama will not end with “hanno ucciso compare Turiddu”, sex in politics is no step forward for the country.
Sunday, August 15, 2004
Thursday, August 05, 2004
Everything is fine, milady
“Tutto va ben, madama la marchesa” goes the refrain of an old song. The house is burning, the treasures stolen but the faithful retainer reassures his mistress that everything is fine. It’s a boulevardier’s song and able crooner that he is, Silvio Berlusconi no doubt knows it well. As Parliament finally closed shop for the summer recess, the Prime Minister gave his rendering when he declared that “We are finishing the season very well; we’re completing the reform cycle and with the budget, in practice, we’ll have completed the picture”.
Well, up to a point.
Last week there was a fist fight in the Chamber of Deputies where one member needed medication, and an exchange of insults which reduced another to tears. The backdrop was a debate on measures to save the ailing Alitalia; the substance was the longstanding division between the Northern League and other members of the governing coalition. A couple of days earlier the government needed a vote of confidence to push through its pension reform. Less visible but worse than both is that Domenico Siniscalco the new Economics Minister, is showing severe symptoms of the Thomas à Becket syndrome. Becket was the king’s good friend, who was nominated archbishop to keep the church under control. Instead he gave all his loyalty to his new appointment. Siniscalco was never the Prime Minister’s buddy but he was supposed to be a quiet yes-man. Hardly a week into the job and he made it very clear that he cannot support an unbalanced budget; he is proposing overall cuts of € 24 bn.
The proposal, the DPEF, the Economic and Financial Programme Document was passed on Tuesday (3 August) and this is what Mr. Berlusconi was crowing about. The real budget will be discussed over the autumn and usually is not passed until Christmas, often with end of financial year cliffhangers. He has also promised tax cuts in the 2005 budget. “Jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but no jam today”, how often have we heard that refrain?
There will be serious resistance to welfare cuts from government coalition members as well as the opposition; disability pensions in the south, investment support, payments to city administrations all hurt National Alliance and UDC voters. Even last week’s agreement on extending retirement age to 60 for everyone is being hotly contested by the unions even though most economists have agreed that it is too little too late. There won’t be any savings until 2008 and substantial gains will have to wait even longer.
But the more spectacular fight is over the constitutional reform bill. If passed, there will be a smaller Parliament and from to-day’s perfect bicameralism, the new system will have a lower house for national matters and the “Senate of the Regions” for regional business. More power would be devolved to Italy’s twenty regions and the Prime Minister would be given significantly greater powers. The Northern League has made its approval a condition of staying in the government. The centrist UDC and the opposition are strongly against giving health, welfare, schooling and local policing powers to the regions and do not want to give anyone greater powers and certainly not Silvio Berlusconi. Compared to other systems, the proposed reforms are actually pretty bland; an American state or a Swiss canton have much more power than the reformed Italian region would have. The British Prime Minister is closer to an elected dictator than Berlusconi dares dream of. But in the Italian context, these issues are sensitive. Central government has always been seen as a way of adjusting the north-south economic imbalance and clipping the PM’s power wards off shadows of the real dictatorship under Mussolini.
Far from being an end of term fever as Mr. Berlusconi’s supporters have suggested, the pre-holiday fireworks are a foretaste of a long drawn out autumn campaign: the left once had “lotta continua”, the struggle goes on, now the centre-right has the “verifica continua”, continuous negotiation. This is the political equivalent of an Italian traffic jam. Everyon edges forward testing the nerve of the nearest driver, uncaring that they are worsening everyone’s position (including their own) by winning a few centimetres for themselves.
Mr. Berlusconi has been playing the traffic warden for the last three years and like most figures of supposed authority, has had less than complete control. However, he has managed to see that his own vehicles cleared the jam and now some of the other motorists want to get moving because they know the lights are going to change very soon. Hence the pushing and shoving in the Chamber of Deputies, not even a metaphor for what happens in traffic jams, but the reality of it.
So we can look forward to more threats to bring the government down but even with the serious hiccoughs and bluster of the last ten days, even with Mr. Tremonti’s removal from the Economics Ministry and Mr. Bossi’s formal withdrawal from domestic politics, I still can’t see the government collapsing before the end of the year but the odds on a Spring 2005 election are shortening just a little.
Until then “tutto va ben, signor cavaliere”.
“Tutto va ben, madama la marchesa” goes the refrain of an old song. The house is burning, the treasures stolen but the faithful retainer reassures his mistress that everything is fine. It’s a boulevardier’s song and able crooner that he is, Silvio Berlusconi no doubt knows it well. As Parliament finally closed shop for the summer recess, the Prime Minister gave his rendering when he declared that “We are finishing the season very well; we’re completing the reform cycle and with the budget, in practice, we’ll have completed the picture”.
Well, up to a point.
Last week there was a fist fight in the Chamber of Deputies where one member needed medication, and an exchange of insults which reduced another to tears. The backdrop was a debate on measures to save the ailing Alitalia; the substance was the longstanding division between the Northern League and other members of the governing coalition. A couple of days earlier the government needed a vote of confidence to push through its pension reform. Less visible but worse than both is that Domenico Siniscalco the new Economics Minister, is showing severe symptoms of the Thomas à Becket syndrome. Becket was the king’s good friend, who was nominated archbishop to keep the church under control. Instead he gave all his loyalty to his new appointment. Siniscalco was never the Prime Minister’s buddy but he was supposed to be a quiet yes-man. Hardly a week into the job and he made it very clear that he cannot support an unbalanced budget; he is proposing overall cuts of € 24 bn.
The proposal, the DPEF, the Economic and Financial Programme Document was passed on Tuesday (3 August) and this is what Mr. Berlusconi was crowing about. The real budget will be discussed over the autumn and usually is not passed until Christmas, often with end of financial year cliffhangers. He has also promised tax cuts in the 2005 budget. “Jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but no jam today”, how often have we heard that refrain?
There will be serious resistance to welfare cuts from government coalition members as well as the opposition; disability pensions in the south, investment support, payments to city administrations all hurt National Alliance and UDC voters. Even last week’s agreement on extending retirement age to 60 for everyone is being hotly contested by the unions even though most economists have agreed that it is too little too late. There won’t be any savings until 2008 and substantial gains will have to wait even longer.
But the more spectacular fight is over the constitutional reform bill. If passed, there will be a smaller Parliament and from to-day’s perfect bicameralism, the new system will have a lower house for national matters and the “Senate of the Regions” for regional business. More power would be devolved to Italy’s twenty regions and the Prime Minister would be given significantly greater powers. The Northern League has made its approval a condition of staying in the government. The centrist UDC and the opposition are strongly against giving health, welfare, schooling and local policing powers to the regions and do not want to give anyone greater powers and certainly not Silvio Berlusconi. Compared to other systems, the proposed reforms are actually pretty bland; an American state or a Swiss canton have much more power than the reformed Italian region would have. The British Prime Minister is closer to an elected dictator than Berlusconi dares dream of. But in the Italian context, these issues are sensitive. Central government has always been seen as a way of adjusting the north-south economic imbalance and clipping the PM’s power wards off shadows of the real dictatorship under Mussolini.
Far from being an end of term fever as Mr. Berlusconi’s supporters have suggested, the pre-holiday fireworks are a foretaste of a long drawn out autumn campaign: the left once had “lotta continua”, the struggle goes on, now the centre-right has the “verifica continua”, continuous negotiation. This is the political equivalent of an Italian traffic jam. Everyon edges forward testing the nerve of the nearest driver, uncaring that they are worsening everyone’s position (including their own) by winning a few centimetres for themselves.
Mr. Berlusconi has been playing the traffic warden for the last three years and like most figures of supposed authority, has had less than complete control. However, he has managed to see that his own vehicles cleared the jam and now some of the other motorists want to get moving because they know the lights are going to change very soon. Hence the pushing and shoving in the Chamber of Deputies, not even a metaphor for what happens in traffic jams, but the reality of it.
So we can look forward to more threats to bring the government down but even with the serious hiccoughs and bluster of the last ten days, even with Mr. Tremonti’s removal from the Economics Ministry and Mr. Bossi’s formal withdrawal from domestic politics, I still can’t see the government collapsing before the end of the year but the odds on a Spring 2005 election are shortening just a little.
Until then “tutto va ben, signor cavaliere”.
Thursday, July 22, 2004
News not fit to print
On Tuesday (20 July), at lunchtime, I get a call from the BBC World Service’s “Europe Today” programme. “What do you think”, I am asked, “of Paolo Berlusconi getting a four year sentence for false invoices?”
This was the first I’d heard of it but I’d been doing other things in the morning. I try and find out more about what had actually happened. He had previous convictions with suspended sentences for corruption and other accounting crimes (some charges dropped when his brother decriminalised false accounting). It sounded very much as if he would actually have to see the inside of San Vittore, Milan’s main gaol. Politically there would be repercussions; to be sure Silvio was not directly involved but he and Paolo worked closely together and many of the Prime Ministers responsibilities were passed on to his younger brother when he went into politics. With the government showing ever-growing cracks, this news looked like another serious fissure in the Berlusconi edifice. Maybe, I dared to think, if Paolo’s trials can finish, even Silvio’s trial for corruption might reach a verdict.
While talking to the BBC person, I go to the Repubblica site to see how they are treating the story. There is nothing – their lead is a speech of President Ciampi’s saying that Italy’s progress depends on “Unity and the Constitution”, hardly controversial. What about ANSA, the country’s principal wire service; again nothing. Surely Unità could be relied upon to use dirt on any member of the Berlusconi family; again nothing. Marianne of the BBC is surprised but says she will check with the BBC monitoring service. And I also recheck.
Looking more carefully at the ANSA site, I find a 69 word dispatch ansa.it - False fatturazioni: inflitte le con... timed at 11.29. Paolo Berlusconi had indeed been convicted again, but to four months and 15 days not four years. On closer inspection, I find the Repubblica wire, Repubblica.it/News. It is a little longer at 138 words timed at 11.35. It points out that Paolo Berlusconi is the Prime Minister’s brother and that this sentence should be served consecutively to his other year and 9 month sentence passed two years ago. Mr. Berlusconi’s company SIMEC had issued false invoices to other Berlusconi-owned companies for rubbish and waste disposal in the Nineties. This conviction was for issuing false invoices in order to defraud both the councils and avoid paying taxes. For the 2002 conviction, he plea bargained the sentence on other related charges down at the same time as paying damages of €85 m. to the councils and the tax authorities.
Marianne and I discuss whether at only four months, this is a story worth doing and we decide that it probably is not (but agree that in any other country if the PM’s brother gets sent down for four and a half months for business dealings relating to family wealth, it probably is a good story). Later, the “Europe Today” editors change their minds but without a mobile, I didn’t know till too late so I do not do the interview and they do not run the story. At that point, I thought it was the end of the matter and that I’d wait for the papers the next day for a bit of background.
I hardly expected Paolo Berlusconi’s own Giornale to lead with the story but I’d hoped for the neutral and opposition papers to give it a good spread. Instead the resounding silence went beyond the Berlusconi family papers. Corriere della Sera did not mention the matter; not only was there no comment, there was not even an “in brief” account on the Italian news pages. Repubblica, storngly anti-Berlusconi, gave the story three short columns at the top of page 20 and even Unità only gave it two very short columns at the bottom of page 3. The news broke mid-morning so there was plenty of time to produce acres of print if an editor had wanted to but obviously no one thought it interesting enough.
That is the charitable explanation; the less charitable explanation is that dealing in waste disposal always leaves unpleasant odours and that if the Prime Minister is involved, even indirectly, it is better to leave well alone and even for the opposition, not to dig too deeply.
Please let me know if your comments may be posted on the blog either with or without attribution;
do us know if you do not want to receive the blog and let us know of others who do want to receive it:
The blog’s address for back numbers is:
http://italpolblog.blogspot.com/
On Tuesday (20 July), at lunchtime, I get a call from the BBC World Service’s “Europe Today” programme. “What do you think”, I am asked, “of Paolo Berlusconi getting a four year sentence for false invoices?”
This was the first I’d heard of it but I’d been doing other things in the morning. I try and find out more about what had actually happened. He had previous convictions with suspended sentences for corruption and other accounting crimes (some charges dropped when his brother decriminalised false accounting). It sounded very much as if he would actually have to see the inside of San Vittore, Milan’s main gaol. Politically there would be repercussions; to be sure Silvio was not directly involved but he and Paolo worked closely together and many of the Prime Ministers responsibilities were passed on to his younger brother when he went into politics. With the government showing ever-growing cracks, this news looked like another serious fissure in the Berlusconi edifice. Maybe, I dared to think, if Paolo’s trials can finish, even Silvio’s trial for corruption might reach a verdict.
While talking to the BBC person, I go to the Repubblica site to see how they are treating the story. There is nothing – their lead is a speech of President Ciampi’s saying that Italy’s progress depends on “Unity and the Constitution”, hardly controversial. What about ANSA, the country’s principal wire service; again nothing. Surely Unità could be relied upon to use dirt on any member of the Berlusconi family; again nothing. Marianne of the BBC is surprised but says she will check with the BBC monitoring service. And I also recheck.
Looking more carefully at the ANSA site, I find a 69 word dispatch ansa.it - False fatturazioni: inflitte le con... timed at 11.29. Paolo Berlusconi had indeed been convicted again, but to four months and 15 days not four years. On closer inspection, I find the Repubblica wire, Repubblica.it/News. It is a little longer at 138 words timed at 11.35. It points out that Paolo Berlusconi is the Prime Minister’s brother and that this sentence should be served consecutively to his other year and 9 month sentence passed two years ago. Mr. Berlusconi’s company SIMEC had issued false invoices to other Berlusconi-owned companies for rubbish and waste disposal in the Nineties. This conviction was for issuing false invoices in order to defraud both the councils and avoid paying taxes. For the 2002 conviction, he plea bargained the sentence on other related charges down at the same time as paying damages of €85 m. to the councils and the tax authorities.
Marianne and I discuss whether at only four months, this is a story worth doing and we decide that it probably is not (but agree that in any other country if the PM’s brother gets sent down for four and a half months for business dealings relating to family wealth, it probably is a good story). Later, the “Europe Today” editors change their minds but without a mobile, I didn’t know till too late so I do not do the interview and they do not run the story. At that point, I thought it was the end of the matter and that I’d wait for the papers the next day for a bit of background.
I hardly expected Paolo Berlusconi’s own Giornale to lead with the story but I’d hoped for the neutral and opposition papers to give it a good spread. Instead the resounding silence went beyond the Berlusconi family papers. Corriere della Sera did not mention the matter; not only was there no comment, there was not even an “in brief” account on the Italian news pages. Repubblica, storngly anti-Berlusconi, gave the story three short columns at the top of page 20 and even Unità only gave it two very short columns at the bottom of page 3. The news broke mid-morning so there was plenty of time to produce acres of print if an editor had wanted to but obviously no one thought it interesting enough.
That is the charitable explanation; the less charitable explanation is that dealing in waste disposal always leaves unpleasant odours and that if the Prime Minister is involved, even indirectly, it is better to leave well alone and even for the opposition, not to dig too deeply.
Please let me know if your comments may be posted on the blog either with or without attribution;
do us know if you do not want to receive the blog and let us know of others who do want to receive it:
The blog’s address for back numbers is:
http://italpolblog.blogspot.com/
Friday, July 09, 2004
The end of Berlusconi?
It’s exam time for anyone who has to comment on Italian politics; the question I have been asked this last week is “is Berlusconi’s government going to fall?” His faithful economics minister, Giulio Tremonti, was forced to resign last week and there have been loud and ominous creaking noises coming from the coalition structure.
The easy answer is that the Prime Minister is in trouble but he is very far from being on the ropes. The question for the exam is: Will Mr. Berlusconi’s government end: a) on 16 July when the leaders of Marco Follini’s centrist UDC meet and withdraw their support? b) in the autumn when the budget planning document (the DPEF) and the budget itself have been published and enough members of the coalition realise the the figures do not add up to political reality to withdraw their support? c) next spring because no one in the coalition dares pull the house down sooner but they can drag the crisis out for another nine or ten months to make the collapse look like an (almost) natural occurrence? And d) Silvio Berlusconi serves out his full five year mandate and stands for re-election in spring 2006.
This is not just the idle chatter of political scientists and journalists during the summer vacation. Standard & Poor’s has already lowered Italy’s credit rating as if to say that even if the European Commission is prepared to give Mr. Berlusconi’s promises to keep his budget deficit under 3% of the GDP, they are less trusting. “Fidarsi è bene” as the Italians say, “ma non fidarsi è meglio” says Standard & Poor’s.
More than the credit rating, there are possible serious consequences on Italy’s relationship with the EU if she does not keep to euro standards; to Italian state owned businesses like Alitalia and the state broadcaster, RAI, if the government really does apply market economy standards across the board; and to any Italian who depends on the welfare state in some way if Mr. Berlusconi really does impose tax and spending cuts.
Not to mention Mr. Berlusconi’s conflict of interest which has grown by leaps and bounds this week as by becoming Minister for the Economy, he has taken on direct responsibility for the RAI, the direct competitor of his own Mediaset.
The story and the options changed over the week too; first the Prime Minister was going to keep the economy portfolio just for a few days (with the near presumption that much respected European Commissioner Mario Monti would take over – Monti politely said “thanks but no thanks” to the poisoned chalice). Then Mr. Berlusconi said that he would stay in the Ministry for some months “until the reforms are through”. The dissidents in the coalition said he should not stay for more than a week. So now the likelihood is for a summer holding operation.
The reasons for all this action are the fundamental ones in politics – power and policy. The policy is the proposed cut in income tax, one of the items on Mr. Berlusconi’s “contract with the Italians”, his five point election manifesto. He has been talking more and more about the cuts since the beginning of the year much to the nervousness of the Alleanza Nazionale and UDC leaders, Gianfranco Fini and Marco Follini.
These two know that Mr. Micawber was right and that in order to balance your books (which Italy must do so as not to get into trouble with the European Commission), if you reduce income, you must reduce expenditure. And they do not want to cut spending on welfare or investment in the South.
As for power, both men have been very docile and cooperative during their three years in power. There are two elements to the present change, short term and long term; in last month’s European elections their parties increased their relative weight in the governing coalition, particularly the UDC and so Mr. Follini feels that he should have more positions in government. If anything was ever conclusive in Italian politics, then the present spat should close the manoeuvres or verifica which started at the beginning of the year in order re-calibrate the relative power of the coalition members. If the government holds, we are very likely to see more UDC people in ministries.
The more longterm motive for unseating Tremonti is the fight for Berlusconi succession and here the sparring has just begun with the main contenders being Fini himself on one side and some sort of reinvented Christian Democracy on the other.
So at the end of the week, which option do I go for? Despite much huffing and puffing, Follini is unlikely to do anything drastic next week and though there have been summer crises in the past, they are improbable as most Italian politicians are thinking more of beaches than the corridors of power. Crunch time will come when the budget is examined and all of us from the European Commission to the Italian voter will see if and how the tax cuts will materialise. Even this will not mean a government crisis but certainly the possibility has come much closer leading to a new Berlusconi-led government.
Elections are still a long way off but the end of Silvio Berlusconi’s second government is much closer.
It’s exam time for anyone who has to comment on Italian politics; the question I have been asked this last week is “is Berlusconi’s government going to fall?” His faithful economics minister, Giulio Tremonti, was forced to resign last week and there have been loud and ominous creaking noises coming from the coalition structure.
The easy answer is that the Prime Minister is in trouble but he is very far from being on the ropes. The question for the exam is: Will Mr. Berlusconi’s government end: a) on 16 July when the leaders of Marco Follini’s centrist UDC meet and withdraw their support? b) in the autumn when the budget planning document (the DPEF) and the budget itself have been published and enough members of the coalition realise the the figures do not add up to political reality to withdraw their support? c) next spring because no one in the coalition dares pull the house down sooner but they can drag the crisis out for another nine or ten months to make the collapse look like an (almost) natural occurrence? And d) Silvio Berlusconi serves out his full five year mandate and stands for re-election in spring 2006.
This is not just the idle chatter of political scientists and journalists during the summer vacation. Standard & Poor’s has already lowered Italy’s credit rating as if to say that even if the European Commission is prepared to give Mr. Berlusconi’s promises to keep his budget deficit under 3% of the GDP, they are less trusting. “Fidarsi è bene” as the Italians say, “ma non fidarsi è meglio” says Standard & Poor’s.
More than the credit rating, there are possible serious consequences on Italy’s relationship with the EU if she does not keep to euro standards; to Italian state owned businesses like Alitalia and the state broadcaster, RAI, if the government really does apply market economy standards across the board; and to any Italian who depends on the welfare state in some way if Mr. Berlusconi really does impose tax and spending cuts.
Not to mention Mr. Berlusconi’s conflict of interest which has grown by leaps and bounds this week as by becoming Minister for the Economy, he has taken on direct responsibility for the RAI, the direct competitor of his own Mediaset.
The story and the options changed over the week too; first the Prime Minister was going to keep the economy portfolio just for a few days (with the near presumption that much respected European Commissioner Mario Monti would take over – Monti politely said “thanks but no thanks” to the poisoned chalice). Then Mr. Berlusconi said that he would stay in the Ministry for some months “until the reforms are through”. The dissidents in the coalition said he should not stay for more than a week. So now the likelihood is for a summer holding operation.
The reasons for all this action are the fundamental ones in politics – power and policy. The policy is the proposed cut in income tax, one of the items on Mr. Berlusconi’s “contract with the Italians”, his five point election manifesto. He has been talking more and more about the cuts since the beginning of the year much to the nervousness of the Alleanza Nazionale and UDC leaders, Gianfranco Fini and Marco Follini.
These two know that Mr. Micawber was right and that in order to balance your books (which Italy must do so as not to get into trouble with the European Commission), if you reduce income, you must reduce expenditure. And they do not want to cut spending on welfare or investment in the South.
As for power, both men have been very docile and cooperative during their three years in power. There are two elements to the present change, short term and long term; in last month’s European elections their parties increased their relative weight in the governing coalition, particularly the UDC and so Mr. Follini feels that he should have more positions in government. If anything was ever conclusive in Italian politics, then the present spat should close the manoeuvres or verifica which started at the beginning of the year in order re-calibrate the relative power of the coalition members. If the government holds, we are very likely to see more UDC people in ministries.
The more longterm motive for unseating Tremonti is the fight for Berlusconi succession and here the sparring has just begun with the main contenders being Fini himself on one side and some sort of reinvented Christian Democracy on the other.
So at the end of the week, which option do I go for? Despite much huffing and puffing, Follini is unlikely to do anything drastic next week and though there have been summer crises in the past, they are improbable as most Italian politicians are thinking more of beaches than the corridors of power. Crunch time will come when the budget is examined and all of us from the European Commission to the Italian voter will see if and how the tax cuts will materialise. Even this will not mean a government crisis but certainly the possibility has come much closer leading to a new Berlusconi-led government.
Elections are still a long way off but the end of Silvio Berlusconi’s second government is much closer.
Sunday, June 13, 2004
European Dream
The headline in one of yesterday’s papers warmed the heart of the most disillusioned Europhile: “Il sogno europeo” it read, across the the whole eight columns; Monnet and Schuman I thought of, even the toilers of today, Giscard and the Constitution, Pat Cox, the most respectable Speaker of the outgoing European Parliament, or Javier Solana and Chris Patten who in their different ways have tried to strengthen the weakest of the European links, foreign policy.
No such luck – that sogno, the dream referred to an obviously much more profound instinct in Italy and elsewhere: football. Fourteen countries are taking part in the European Cup and four of them are not even in the EU. The first match was yesterday and I have no doubt the competition will excite more Europeans this week than the EP elections.
Still, there were some busy dreamers in Europe last week which is more than enough to cue me into a new blog series.
Two of them, George Bush and Silvio Berlusconi were pounding the election trail while trying to maintain the appearance of responsible world leaders.
Mr. Berlusconi is fighting not just today’s election (which almost certainly won’t actually change his position as prime minister); he’s preparing for next year’s regional elections and national elections probably in May 2006. Mr. Bush has his eye firmly fixed on November. Both have very uncertain poll ratings.
The American President can be happy with his day and a half in Italy. True, there was criticism from both the Pope and President Ciampi but predictably it was muted and oblique, a general appeal to respect international law and institutions. This could have been taken either as a reproach for Bush’s past actions or an encouragement to pursue his present policy of using the UN to deal with the Iraqi quagmire. Spin either way. In any case the pictures were moving and not only for American Catholic voters; they did not show the raised Vatican eyebrows at the President’s lack of punctuality, a very minor glitch in an effective ceremony.
His speeches celebrating the liberation of Rome on 4 June 1944 finessed the differences with the “liberation” of Baghdad last year without labouring the similarities while the anti-Bush demonstration hardly touched the American domestic audience, another plus.
Add the other events, a quasi-rapprochement with Chirac in Normandy, the unanimous approval of the Anglo-American UN resolution, no serious disagreements at the G8 summit and the self-donned mantle of Ronal Reagan, and we can reckon that it was a good week for George W.
On the face of it, so it was for Silvio Berlusconi. He was almost centre stage while Bush was in Rome, a week before the elections and he could look forward to the G8 which soothed the sting of not being invited to Normandy, taken as a personal snub from Chirac. Then in mid-week, the godsend (or some said, in this country of conspiracy theorists, the carefully stage managed event); the liberation of the three Italian hostages in Iraq. Berlusconi ruled the airwaves; it was he that gave the go-ahead for the operation, it was he that was in control of the situation giving live interviews from his plane in mid-Atlantic and from Georgia. As one commentator put it “he did everything but appear in battle dress”.
He has said confidently that whatever happens in today’s elections, he will not resign as Prime Minister (as Massimo D’Alema did in 2000 when the centre-left lost in the regional elections). In any case, he says, Forza Italia will poll more than the 25% they took in the last European elections.
An yet clearly he is actually rattled; he is a candidate in all five constituencies though he has made it clear that he will not take up his seat in Strasbourg. The ploy is obvious enough; this is a referendum on Silvio Berlusconi. He will of course win more votes than any other candidate but if it is not a massive affirmation, then the boomerang will hit him on the head.
As much as losing to the centre-left, he is a afraid of losing ground within the centre-right coalition. He has already said that there will be a cabinet reshuffle after the elections (“strengthening the team” is his euphemism) which could give much more influence to Fini’s Alleanza Nazionale or Follini’s UDC.
Even the hostage release which should have been pure good news Berlusconi has already become muddied; the Government has been accused of paying a $9m. ransom for their release. Few voters will have changed from left to right because of the release but potential centre-right voters might actually turn out to vote. Others might switch to Forza Italia from one of the other centre-right parties. To try and increase turnout, Mr. Berlusconi’s office sent text messages to every single cellphone in the country on Friday and yesterday. With Mr. Berlusconi a candidate, the charge of illicit electioneering has been flying. In Italy, all forms of campaigning are prohited from Friday midnight.
Yesterday when he went to vote, Mr. Berlusconi added even more fuel to the fire as he gave an impromptu election speech. Not surprisingly, he annoyed the opposition but he infuriated his allies by saying that Italians should not vote for “small parties”.
He sounds like a worried man but we will have to wait till late tonight to see if Italy is suffering from Berlusconi fatigue, and before then, as a good European, I must go and vote.
The headline in one of yesterday’s papers warmed the heart of the most disillusioned Europhile: “Il sogno europeo” it read, across the the whole eight columns; Monnet and Schuman I thought of, even the toilers of today, Giscard and the Constitution, Pat Cox, the most respectable Speaker of the outgoing European Parliament, or Javier Solana and Chris Patten who in their different ways have tried to strengthen the weakest of the European links, foreign policy.
No such luck – that sogno, the dream referred to an obviously much more profound instinct in Italy and elsewhere: football. Fourteen countries are taking part in the European Cup and four of them are not even in the EU. The first match was yesterday and I have no doubt the competition will excite more Europeans this week than the EP elections.
Still, there were some busy dreamers in Europe last week which is more than enough to cue me into a new blog series.
Two of them, George Bush and Silvio Berlusconi were pounding the election trail while trying to maintain the appearance of responsible world leaders.
Mr. Berlusconi is fighting not just today’s election (which almost certainly won’t actually change his position as prime minister); he’s preparing for next year’s regional elections and national elections probably in May 2006. Mr. Bush has his eye firmly fixed on November. Both have very uncertain poll ratings.
The American President can be happy with his day and a half in Italy. True, there was criticism from both the Pope and President Ciampi but predictably it was muted and oblique, a general appeal to respect international law and institutions. This could have been taken either as a reproach for Bush’s past actions or an encouragement to pursue his present policy of using the UN to deal with the Iraqi quagmire. Spin either way. In any case the pictures were moving and not only for American Catholic voters; they did not show the raised Vatican eyebrows at the President’s lack of punctuality, a very minor glitch in an effective ceremony.
His speeches celebrating the liberation of Rome on 4 June 1944 finessed the differences with the “liberation” of Baghdad last year without labouring the similarities while the anti-Bush demonstration hardly touched the American domestic audience, another plus.
Add the other events, a quasi-rapprochement with Chirac in Normandy, the unanimous approval of the Anglo-American UN resolution, no serious disagreements at the G8 summit and the self-donned mantle of Ronal Reagan, and we can reckon that it was a good week for George W.
On the face of it, so it was for Silvio Berlusconi. He was almost centre stage while Bush was in Rome, a week before the elections and he could look forward to the G8 which soothed the sting of not being invited to Normandy, taken as a personal snub from Chirac. Then in mid-week, the godsend (or some said, in this country of conspiracy theorists, the carefully stage managed event); the liberation of the three Italian hostages in Iraq. Berlusconi ruled the airwaves; it was he that gave the go-ahead for the operation, it was he that was in control of the situation giving live interviews from his plane in mid-Atlantic and from Georgia. As one commentator put it “he did everything but appear in battle dress”.
He has said confidently that whatever happens in today’s elections, he will not resign as Prime Minister (as Massimo D’Alema did in 2000 when the centre-left lost in the regional elections). In any case, he says, Forza Italia will poll more than the 25% they took in the last European elections.
An yet clearly he is actually rattled; he is a candidate in all five constituencies though he has made it clear that he will not take up his seat in Strasbourg. The ploy is obvious enough; this is a referendum on Silvio Berlusconi. He will of course win more votes than any other candidate but if it is not a massive affirmation, then the boomerang will hit him on the head.
As much as losing to the centre-left, he is a afraid of losing ground within the centre-right coalition. He has already said that there will be a cabinet reshuffle after the elections (“strengthening the team” is his euphemism) which could give much more influence to Fini’s Alleanza Nazionale or Follini’s UDC.
Even the hostage release which should have been pure good news Berlusconi has already become muddied; the Government has been accused of paying a $9m. ransom for their release. Few voters will have changed from left to right because of the release but potential centre-right voters might actually turn out to vote. Others might switch to Forza Italia from one of the other centre-right parties. To try and increase turnout, Mr. Berlusconi’s office sent text messages to every single cellphone in the country on Friday and yesterday. With Mr. Berlusconi a candidate, the charge of illicit electioneering has been flying. In Italy, all forms of campaigning are prohited from Friday midnight.
Yesterday when he went to vote, Mr. Berlusconi added even more fuel to the fire as he gave an impromptu election speech. Not surprisingly, he annoyed the opposition but he infuriated his allies by saying that Italians should not vote for “small parties”.
He sounds like a worried man but we will have to wait till late tonight to see if Italy is suffering from Berlusconi fatigue, and before then, as a good European, I must go and vote.
Thursday, April 08, 2004
Constitutional reform – how serious?
Nadia Desai
The Northern League was up to its old antics again last week in the Chamber of Deputies. They bellowed their usual phrase “Roma ladrona”, this time in protest to cartolarizzazione, which is the sale of properties that are owned by public agencies of different sorts ie. properties owned by pension funds, to private holders. This sale of public property is by no means an initiative of the current government; it was a process that began in the 1980s, not only in Italy, but also across Europe. The move was meant to reduce the public sector thus introducing competition, which would lead to efficiency. Furthermore, selling-off state property was also meant to serve for the reduction of the public debt.
What the League was criticising was that this process of privatisation is corrupted, and that state owned enterprises end up in the hands of close associates, who operate in the private sector, for less than the accepted value.
But what can the League actually achieve with this un-parliamentary behaviour, besides the suspension of its two vocal members from parliament and impatient groans from their coalition colleagues as well as members of the public? There is little reason to adopt such offensive language, considering that the Federal Reform Bill was passed in the Italian Senate on 25th March. Granted, the bill, being a constitutional amendment, will have to be passed twice by both houses of parliament and may not make it that far as it has already received extensive criticism and opposition from the left coalition. But, few thought the League would get this far with its federal reform programme, especially as it is apart of the same coalition as the National Alliance, which, nostalgic for the days of fascism, advocates a strong, centralist state.
In 2001, a similar reform was intended as what can be considered the last major legislative act of the centre-left coalition. The federal reforms in that constitutional amendment gave the regions concurrent legislative powers with the state in the areas of health, education and public safety. Problems arose, however, with the concept of parallel legislative powers, which resulted in a series of disputes between the institutions that sought recourse in the Constitutional Court. Thus, the reform package became virtually paralysed by these conflicts.
Umberto Bossi therefore recognised the need for a new reform proposal. However, while the 2001 reforms did have the support of social groups ie. Trade unions, the new reforms do not. This is due to the fact that the new proposals advocate for the regions to have exclusive legal competence in the aforementioned areas, as opposed to concurrent ones. Trade unions have widely opposed this reform, as they believe the new legislative structure does not guarantee the rights and working conditions of all Italian citizens and that certain infringements of people’s protections will develop between the various regions. Such dangers may, of course, be more present in the underdeveloped southern region of Italy, which has been described as parasitic on the north – a view especially held among leghisti.
Another section of the reform package that is widely criticised by the opposition is that of restructuring the Senate to a house of regional representatives. This has understandably caused much confusion and concern as it may leave regions the freedom to conduct policies according to their own interests, not taking into account national interests. Thus, regions could pursue certain development policies for their own benefit that could very well harm other regions. According to the opposition, such a reform could fracture national unity and set Italians against each other.
But the most contentious area of the reforms is, perhaps, the proposal to concentrate more power in the hands of the prime minister. At present, the prime minister is an expression of the majority coalition in parliament and is nominated by the President of the Republic. If the reforms are passed, the prime minister will be directly elected, and will be able to hire and fire ministers as he pleases. Moreover, the prime minister will be able to dissolve parliament – a power that has always resided with the president. Understandably, with the present situation in Italian politics, much criticism has risen from the centre-left opposition, who accuse Prime Minister Berlusconi for trying to concentrate power in his own hands. However, it is argued by the supporters of the bill that directly electing the prime minister will bring Italians closer to the political system, and that the additional prime ministerial powers will speed up the sluggish legislative process, it is difficult to not show pessimism towards the seeming well-intentioned Berlusconi. Intentions of the sort from a man with such an extensive monopoly over public and private life in Italy, coupled with his obscure dealings with the law, must be met with scepticism. If this type of reform is passed then Italy will be in even more danger from Berlusconi, who is already accused of passing legislation that serves his private interests and will be subjected to even fewer checks and balances in order to get his way. This is one of the possible consequences of the reform package if it is accepted in its present state. But, if it is not passed as it is, will the Northern League pull out of the coalition government as it has threatened to do? If so, the government will fall and if parliament is not able to express a majority, then Italians will have to return to the polls, in which case a new coalition will take power (perhaps even centre-left if Prodi returns as promised). Will that mean that the League will retreat to its separatist rhetoric of the early 1990’s, advocating for the independence of “Padania”? Or will Bossi compromise the goals of a federalist Italy in order to remain in government? Perhaps all this hypothesising is excessive, but it certainly shows that many questions and possibilities rest on the outcome of the reform package.
Nadia Desai
The Northern League was up to its old antics again last week in the Chamber of Deputies. They bellowed their usual phrase “Roma ladrona”, this time in protest to cartolarizzazione, which is the sale of properties that are owned by public agencies of different sorts ie. properties owned by pension funds, to private holders. This sale of public property is by no means an initiative of the current government; it was a process that began in the 1980s, not only in Italy, but also across Europe. The move was meant to reduce the public sector thus introducing competition, which would lead to efficiency. Furthermore, selling-off state property was also meant to serve for the reduction of the public debt.
What the League was criticising was that this process of privatisation is corrupted, and that state owned enterprises end up in the hands of close associates, who operate in the private sector, for less than the accepted value.
But what can the League actually achieve with this un-parliamentary behaviour, besides the suspension of its two vocal members from parliament and impatient groans from their coalition colleagues as well as members of the public? There is little reason to adopt such offensive language, considering that the Federal Reform Bill was passed in the Italian Senate on 25th March. Granted, the bill, being a constitutional amendment, will have to be passed twice by both houses of parliament and may not make it that far as it has already received extensive criticism and opposition from the left coalition. But, few thought the League would get this far with its federal reform programme, especially as it is apart of the same coalition as the National Alliance, which, nostalgic for the days of fascism, advocates a strong, centralist state.
In 2001, a similar reform was intended as what can be considered the last major legislative act of the centre-left coalition. The federal reforms in that constitutional amendment gave the regions concurrent legislative powers with the state in the areas of health, education and public safety. Problems arose, however, with the concept of parallel legislative powers, which resulted in a series of disputes between the institutions that sought recourse in the Constitutional Court. Thus, the reform package became virtually paralysed by these conflicts.
Umberto Bossi therefore recognised the need for a new reform proposal. However, while the 2001 reforms did have the support of social groups ie. Trade unions, the new reforms do not. This is due to the fact that the new proposals advocate for the regions to have exclusive legal competence in the aforementioned areas, as opposed to concurrent ones. Trade unions have widely opposed this reform, as they believe the new legislative structure does not guarantee the rights and working conditions of all Italian citizens and that certain infringements of people’s protections will develop between the various regions. Such dangers may, of course, be more present in the underdeveloped southern region of Italy, which has been described as parasitic on the north – a view especially held among leghisti.
Another section of the reform package that is widely criticised by the opposition is that of restructuring the Senate to a house of regional representatives. This has understandably caused much confusion and concern as it may leave regions the freedom to conduct policies according to their own interests, not taking into account national interests. Thus, regions could pursue certain development policies for their own benefit that could very well harm other regions. According to the opposition, such a reform could fracture national unity and set Italians against each other.
But the most contentious area of the reforms is, perhaps, the proposal to concentrate more power in the hands of the prime minister. At present, the prime minister is an expression of the majority coalition in parliament and is nominated by the President of the Republic. If the reforms are passed, the prime minister will be directly elected, and will be able to hire and fire ministers as he pleases. Moreover, the prime minister will be able to dissolve parliament – a power that has always resided with the president. Understandably, with the present situation in Italian politics, much criticism has risen from the centre-left opposition, who accuse Prime Minister Berlusconi for trying to concentrate power in his own hands. However, it is argued by the supporters of the bill that directly electing the prime minister will bring Italians closer to the political system, and that the additional prime ministerial powers will speed up the sluggish legislative process, it is difficult to not show pessimism towards the seeming well-intentioned Berlusconi. Intentions of the sort from a man with such an extensive monopoly over public and private life in Italy, coupled with his obscure dealings with the law, must be met with scepticism. If this type of reform is passed then Italy will be in even more danger from Berlusconi, who is already accused of passing legislation that serves his private interests and will be subjected to even fewer checks and balances in order to get his way. This is one of the possible consequences of the reform package if it is accepted in its present state. But, if it is not passed as it is, will the Northern League pull out of the coalition government as it has threatened to do? If so, the government will fall and if parliament is not able to express a majority, then Italians will have to return to the polls, in which case a new coalition will take power (perhaps even centre-left if Prodi returns as promised). Will that mean that the League will retreat to its separatist rhetoric of the early 1990’s, advocating for the independence of “Padania”? Or will Bossi compromise the goals of a federalist Italy in order to remain in government? Perhaps all this hypothesising is excessive, but it certainly shows that many questions and possibilities rest on the outcome of the reform package.
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
From the start the blog was intended to be a forum for the discussion and presentation of different views and this year we have had a contribution from Nora Galli de' Paratesi. For the next few weeks the blog will host contributions from AUR students completing the semester's Italian Politics course.
Their own worst enemies?
Alba Lupia
On March 11th terrorism again shook the western world, this time concentrating itself in Europe. Within 3 days of the massacre of innocent civilians in Spain the people chose to change their government. A historical amount of voters flooded the polls to oust Jose' Maria Aznar who had sent troops to Iraq, favorour of the Socialist leader Zapatero. Three days later the Spanish people had spoken. If the UN does not take control of the reconstruction in post-war Iraq by June 30th, Spanish troops will withdraw.
The repercussions of this change over will be felt in all of America's allies. The curiosity lies in how far the vibrations will actually reach. In Italy the biggest left-wing party the DS has since February 14th begun their steps towards at least an electoral alliance with the centre-left Margherita (Daisy) called the Olive Tree Alliance in the hope of an eventual defeat of the current Berlusconi run government. In the coalition Fassino and Prodi are striving for a victory in the June European elections as a prelude to Italian the elections of 2006. This coalition of the left prides itself on bringing peace to Italy once in power. An important question remains: how "united" is this pacifist coalition?
On the anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war, demonstrators all over Europe marched through their cities' squares to reaffirm Zapatero's statement and what they had rallied for one year before. The demonstration in Rome was one of the largest with perhaps as many as a million people taking part. The historical centre was swarming with rainbow peace flags and good intentions. That afternoon however, the peace march became divisive. In a very crowded area near Santa Maria Maggiore the demonstrators were forced to stand still for several hours. One of the many supporting groups of the DS, also the most important due to party secretary Piero Fassino's presence, tried to enter the march at this point and found itself face to face with some of the most radical segments of the movement. Soon enough young radicals began casting insults and throwing objects in opposition to the supposed solidarity of Fassino. His offence in their eyes was that he had gone to the previous Thursday's demonstration "against terrorism" where centre right politicians had gone too; as bad, the DS had not voted against the continued financing of Italian missions abroad in Parliament the week before. Fassino had wanted to support the earlier Italian peace missions some of which the DS had initiated but vote against the Iraq mission; the Government made this impossible by combining the vote, hence the DS compromise. At the demonstration, despite the heckling, the tension was shortlived and peace again took to the streets.
In the following days some journalists especially on television and in pro-government papers have taken this event to prove that the centre-left is even more divided. It has been compared to the activities of '77 which climaxed with the death of Aldo Moro. The peace march is now being used as another weapon in Italian political controversy.
It seems that the left's enemies are not the right but instead found on their own side. The right calls this the typical "sickness" of the left. The ostensible unity is in fact in jeopardy. On one side of the spectrum there are the radicals who chant "tutti a casa, via di Baghdad". These absolute pacifists that make up a large part of the voting left are faced with opposition in their own alliance. The dominant idea is backed by the DS. Reform and reorganization for peace is the central plan. The incident on Saturday was a sign for the left to not only discuss their ideas on reform and peace but to revaluate their state of unity. They need to ask themselves What is reform for peace? Is it the unconditional withdrawal of Italian troops or continuing to stay present under UN command in hopes of helping the reconstruction of the Iraqi government? The other day demonstrators yelled for the removal of the troops but the politicians of the left insist that this will not bring peace. Instead Italy would be turning its back on the problem and alienating itself from the rest of Europe. They want a Spanish-style policy of keeping troops in Iraq but under UN command.
If the Olive Tree coalition hopes to win votes these questions must be answered. Their image of unity is dissipating as Fassino is accused of compromising with the pro-Bush government and the Prodi list must be made clearer.
The coalition was not even united for a single peace march let alone on ideas of reform and advancement.
The centre left are full of ideas for change and whether or not they can implement them once in power is arguable. These ideas are mostly anti-Berlusconi instead of ones with a definite programme for change.
Their own worst enemies?
Alba Lupia
On March 11th terrorism again shook the western world, this time concentrating itself in Europe. Within 3 days of the massacre of innocent civilians in Spain the people chose to change their government. A historical amount of voters flooded the polls to oust Jose' Maria Aznar who had sent troops to Iraq, favorour of the Socialist leader Zapatero. Three days later the Spanish people had spoken. If the UN does not take control of the reconstruction in post-war Iraq by June 30th, Spanish troops will withdraw.
The repercussions of this change over will be felt in all of America's allies. The curiosity lies in how far the vibrations will actually reach. In Italy the biggest left-wing party the DS has since February 14th begun their steps towards at least an electoral alliance with the centre-left Margherita (Daisy) called the Olive Tree Alliance in the hope of an eventual defeat of the current Berlusconi run government. In the coalition Fassino and Prodi are striving for a victory in the June European elections as a prelude to Italian the elections of 2006. This coalition of the left prides itself on bringing peace to Italy once in power. An important question remains: how "united" is this pacifist coalition?
On the anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war, demonstrators all over Europe marched through their cities' squares to reaffirm Zapatero's statement and what they had rallied for one year before. The demonstration in Rome was one of the largest with perhaps as many as a million people taking part. The historical centre was swarming with rainbow peace flags and good intentions. That afternoon however, the peace march became divisive. In a very crowded area near Santa Maria Maggiore the demonstrators were forced to stand still for several hours. One of the many supporting groups of the DS, also the most important due to party secretary Piero Fassino's presence, tried to enter the march at this point and found itself face to face with some of the most radical segments of the movement. Soon enough young radicals began casting insults and throwing objects in opposition to the supposed solidarity of Fassino. His offence in their eyes was that he had gone to the previous Thursday's demonstration "against terrorism" where centre right politicians had gone too; as bad, the DS had not voted against the continued financing of Italian missions abroad in Parliament the week before. Fassino had wanted to support the earlier Italian peace missions some of which the DS had initiated but vote against the Iraq mission; the Government made this impossible by combining the vote, hence the DS compromise. At the demonstration, despite the heckling, the tension was shortlived and peace again took to the streets.
In the following days some journalists especially on television and in pro-government papers have taken this event to prove that the centre-left is even more divided. It has been compared to the activities of '77 which climaxed with the death of Aldo Moro. The peace march is now being used as another weapon in Italian political controversy.
It seems that the left's enemies are not the right but instead found on their own side. The right calls this the typical "sickness" of the left. The ostensible unity is in fact in jeopardy. On one side of the spectrum there are the radicals who chant "tutti a casa, via di Baghdad". These absolute pacifists that make up a large part of the voting left are faced with opposition in their own alliance. The dominant idea is backed by the DS. Reform and reorganization for peace is the central plan. The incident on Saturday was a sign for the left to not only discuss their ideas on reform and peace but to revaluate their state of unity. They need to ask themselves What is reform for peace? Is it the unconditional withdrawal of Italian troops or continuing to stay present under UN command in hopes of helping the reconstruction of the Iraqi government? The other day demonstrators yelled for the removal of the troops but the politicians of the left insist that this will not bring peace. Instead Italy would be turning its back on the problem and alienating itself from the rest of Europe. They want a Spanish-style policy of keeping troops in Iraq but under UN command.
If the Olive Tree coalition hopes to win votes these questions must be answered. Their image of unity is dissipating as Fassino is accused of compromising with the pro-Bush government and the Prodi list must be made clearer.
The coalition was not even united for a single peace march let alone on ideas of reform and advancement.
The centre left are full of ideas for change and whether or not they can implement them once in power is arguable. These ideas are mostly anti-Berlusconi instead of ones with a definite programme for change.
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Who's next?
And what do we do about it?
In the 1930s, Aldous Huxley observed wryly that it would take a Martian invasion for humankind to unite; something like that happened briefly yesterday for Europeans as the whole continent stopped in silence for three minutes at midday. Here in Rome the Italian tricolour, the European stars and the city banners had all been at half mast for the previous three days and the shock and solidarity went way beyond media hype and political leaders in dark suits and with grave faces.
But already yesterday, from the moment the Spanish election results were clear, the bickering began again. It is louder here to be sure as is the Italian custom but the underlying issues cut across the continent. They are issues which deserve to be debated carefully, not dispassionately but with accuracy and with as little mystification as possible. It probably will not happen and the tones will be strident and based on deep-seated prejudices walled in by powerful rhetoric and doubtful logic.
But here is an attempt to move in the other direction.
On the increasingly likely hypothesis that the Madrid bombs were a radical Islamic attack, they are traumatic to Europeans for two reasons. The first is the scale of the carnage; the biggest previous attacks, Bologna in 1980 and Omagh in 1998 did not reach three figures. The second, and I think more disturbing element is the alien and for most people totally incomprehensible aim of the attack. Whether it was the IRA, red or black terrorism in Italy, or Spain’s own Basques, these were objectives that most of us can relate to, understand and put in historical and cultural context and then elaborate ways of fighting back.
There is a parallel here in the United States between Oklahoma and 9/11. The first was horrendous in scale but was the work of a lone (American) fanatic. The results are terrible for the bereaved and for the city but did not change society. 9/11 clearly did and not only because of the scale of death and destruction but because of the near invisibility of the enemy.
It has always puzzled me why chemical weapons have been banned soon after their invention while other more traditional weapons continued to kill. Is it worse to die from mustard gas burning your lungs or shrapnel disembowelling you? The reason, or at least one reason, is the perceived insidiousness of gas as opposed to an explosive shell. So it is with this new kind of terrorism.
Most of Europe has had direct experience of terrorism in the last forty years. Sometimes the targets were random, the French Secret Army Organisation, the OAS, the Italian right, sometimes the Basques and both sides of the Northern Irish divide. Other times it was targeted, the Italian left, the Basques again and Ulster again. There were moments when both society and governments were put under serious stress and there were deep divisions. Today’s threat is different because it seems to come from outside our society and threaten the whole of it as much as we can understand.
So we should have the Martian effect with all of Europe united and united with the US. We don’t because since the threat is so vague, there cannot be a single response or even agreement on how the threat is articulated.
The first political effect of the Madrid bombs was that enough Spanish voters changed their minds, either by changing their vote or by actually going out to vote in order to change opinion poll predictions. There are three possible reasons as far as I can see: they punished the lies and equivocations of the government, two: they felt that Zapatero and the PSOE is better equipped to deal with the new emergency and three: a technical reason, that the higher turnout was made up of previously half-committed PSOE voters.
If the second reason is dominant, then, broadly speaking, we have two possible motivations. First, that those voters feel that by withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq, they will be safe from future attack; the appeasement, or Danegeld argument. Secondly, that this radical Islamic terrorism is best faced by a combined effort of the international community under as broad an umbrella as possible (in Zapatero’s case, he wants to see the UN take over in Iraq).
Coming back to Italy (and the UK, Denmark and Poland all of whom have troops in Iraq), the debate has to be put in terms of how best to deal with the threat which we face (and no doubt even those countries which opposed the war as well). Radical Islamic violence is not just or even primarily aimed at the so-called “West”. Moderate and secular Islamic countries bore the initial brunt of the movement for most of the ‘90s – in Algeria, in Morocco, in Egypt and in Afghanistan. Invading one of those secular countries however brutal a dictatorship Saddam’s Iraq was, has only stoked the fires of Islamic radicalism, allowed it into Iraq, provided fertile recruitment ground for many others, Arab and non-Arab.
But Iraq has been invaded and is policed by a largely foreign force which cannot be removed without causing a complete disaster for west and east alike. So the only way to begin to rebuild consensus and begin to dry up the sources of Islamic radicalism is to make the soldiers into peacekeepers rather than occupiers and give responsibility to the international community. Angelo Panebianco in to-day’s Corriere argues that the Spanish threat to withdraw the troops is the equivalent of Munich 1938. He has misread time and place; the parallels are with Dayton 1995 which began the Balkan piece process. To widen the legality and the responsibility of the foreign presence in Iraq is the opposite of appeasement.
This is hardly an original hope but it is one based on the methods used to successfully stop political radicals in Italy from using terrorist methods. Mr. Zapatero’s victory on Sunday is a model for those in the rest of Europe who were against the invasion of Iraq and who were convinced that tanks and missiles encourage terrorism rather than curb it. The left in Italy, Britain and Denmark will use it in June’s European Parliament elections; the right and Tony Blair are warned that their military support of the US has a political price tag.
And what do we do about it?
In the 1930s, Aldous Huxley observed wryly that it would take a Martian invasion for humankind to unite; something like that happened briefly yesterday for Europeans as the whole continent stopped in silence for three minutes at midday. Here in Rome the Italian tricolour, the European stars and the city banners had all been at half mast for the previous three days and the shock and solidarity went way beyond media hype and political leaders in dark suits and with grave faces.
But already yesterday, from the moment the Spanish election results were clear, the bickering began again. It is louder here to be sure as is the Italian custom but the underlying issues cut across the continent. They are issues which deserve to be debated carefully, not dispassionately but with accuracy and with as little mystification as possible. It probably will not happen and the tones will be strident and based on deep-seated prejudices walled in by powerful rhetoric and doubtful logic.
But here is an attempt to move in the other direction.
On the increasingly likely hypothesis that the Madrid bombs were a radical Islamic attack, they are traumatic to Europeans for two reasons. The first is the scale of the carnage; the biggest previous attacks, Bologna in 1980 and Omagh in 1998 did not reach three figures. The second, and I think more disturbing element is the alien and for most people totally incomprehensible aim of the attack. Whether it was the IRA, red or black terrorism in Italy, or Spain’s own Basques, these were objectives that most of us can relate to, understand and put in historical and cultural context and then elaborate ways of fighting back.
There is a parallel here in the United States between Oklahoma and 9/11. The first was horrendous in scale but was the work of a lone (American) fanatic. The results are terrible for the bereaved and for the city but did not change society. 9/11 clearly did and not only because of the scale of death and destruction but because of the near invisibility of the enemy.
It has always puzzled me why chemical weapons have been banned soon after their invention while other more traditional weapons continued to kill. Is it worse to die from mustard gas burning your lungs or shrapnel disembowelling you? The reason, or at least one reason, is the perceived insidiousness of gas as opposed to an explosive shell. So it is with this new kind of terrorism.
Most of Europe has had direct experience of terrorism in the last forty years. Sometimes the targets were random, the French Secret Army Organisation, the OAS, the Italian right, sometimes the Basques and both sides of the Northern Irish divide. Other times it was targeted, the Italian left, the Basques again and Ulster again. There were moments when both society and governments were put under serious stress and there were deep divisions. Today’s threat is different because it seems to come from outside our society and threaten the whole of it as much as we can understand.
So we should have the Martian effect with all of Europe united and united with the US. We don’t because since the threat is so vague, there cannot be a single response or even agreement on how the threat is articulated.
The first political effect of the Madrid bombs was that enough Spanish voters changed their minds, either by changing their vote or by actually going out to vote in order to change opinion poll predictions. There are three possible reasons as far as I can see: they punished the lies and equivocations of the government, two: they felt that Zapatero and the PSOE is better equipped to deal with the new emergency and three: a technical reason, that the higher turnout was made up of previously half-committed PSOE voters.
If the second reason is dominant, then, broadly speaking, we have two possible motivations. First, that those voters feel that by withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq, they will be safe from future attack; the appeasement, or Danegeld argument. Secondly, that this radical Islamic terrorism is best faced by a combined effort of the international community under as broad an umbrella as possible (in Zapatero’s case, he wants to see the UN take over in Iraq).
Coming back to Italy (and the UK, Denmark and Poland all of whom have troops in Iraq), the debate has to be put in terms of how best to deal with the threat which we face (and no doubt even those countries which opposed the war as well). Radical Islamic violence is not just or even primarily aimed at the so-called “West”. Moderate and secular Islamic countries bore the initial brunt of the movement for most of the ‘90s – in Algeria, in Morocco, in Egypt and in Afghanistan. Invading one of those secular countries however brutal a dictatorship Saddam’s Iraq was, has only stoked the fires of Islamic radicalism, allowed it into Iraq, provided fertile recruitment ground for many others, Arab and non-Arab.
But Iraq has been invaded and is policed by a largely foreign force which cannot be removed without causing a complete disaster for west and east alike. So the only way to begin to rebuild consensus and begin to dry up the sources of Islamic radicalism is to make the soldiers into peacekeepers rather than occupiers and give responsibility to the international community. Angelo Panebianco in to-day’s Corriere argues that the Spanish threat to withdraw the troops is the equivalent of Munich 1938. He has misread time and place; the parallels are with Dayton 1995 which began the Balkan piece process. To widen the legality and the responsibility of the foreign presence in Iraq is the opposite of appeasement.
This is hardly an original hope but it is one based on the methods used to successfully stop political radicals in Italy from using terrorist methods. Mr. Zapatero’s victory on Sunday is a model for those in the rest of Europe who were against the invasion of Iraq and who were convinced that tanks and missiles encourage terrorism rather than curb it. The left in Italy, Britain and Denmark will use it in June’s European Parliament elections; the right and Tony Blair are warned that their military support of the US has a political price tag.
Who's next?
And what do we do about it?
In the 1930s, Aldous Huxley observed wryly that it would take a Martian invasion for humankind to unite; something like that happened briefly yesterday for Europeans as the whole continent stopped in silence for three minutes at midday. Here in Rome the Italian tricolour, the European stars and the city banners had all been at half mast for the previous three days and the shock and solidarity went way beyond media hype and political leaders in dark suits and with grave faces.
But already yesterday, from the moment the Spanish election results were clear, the bickering began again. It is louder here to be sure as is the Italian custom but the underlying issues cut across the continent. They are issues which deserve to be debated carefully, not dispassionately but with accuracy and with as little mystification as possible. It probably will not happen and the tones will be strident and based on deep-seated prejudices walled in by powerful rhetoric and doubtful logic.
But here is an attempt to move in the other direction.
On the increasingly likely hypothesis that the Madrid bombs were a radical Islamic attack, they are traumatic to Europeans for two reasons. The first is the scale of the carnage; the biggest previous attacks, Bologna in 1980 and Omagh in 1998 did not reach three figures. The second, and I think more disturbing element is the alien and for most people totally incomprehensible aim of the attack. Whether it was the IRA, red or black terrorism in Italy, or Spain’s own Basques, these were objectives that most of us can relate to, understand and put in historical and cultural context and then elaborate ways of fighting back.
There is a parallel here in the United States between Oklahoma and 9/11. The first was horrendous in scale but was the work of a lone (American) fanatic. The results are terrible for the bereaved and for the city but did not change society. 9/11 clearly did and not only because of the scale of death and destruction but because of the near invisibility of the enemy.
It has always puzzled me why chemical weapons have been banned soon after their invention while other more traditional weapons continued to kill. Is it worse to die from mustard gas burning your lungs or shrapnel disembowelling you? The reason, or at least one reason, is the perceived insidiousness of gas as opposed to an explosive shell. So it is with this new kind of terrorism.
Most of Europe has had direct experience of terrorism in the last forty years. Sometimes the targets were random, the French Secret Army Organisation, the OAS, the Italian right, sometimes the Basques and both sides of the Northern Irish divide. Other times it was targeted, the Italian left, the Basques again and Ulster again. There were moments when both society and governments were put under serious stress and there were deep divisions. Today’s threat is different because it seems to come from outside our society and threaten the whole of it as much as we can understand.
So we should have the Martian effect with all of Europe united and united with the US. We don’t because since the threat is so vague, there cannot be a single response or even agreement on how the threat is articulated.
The first political effect of the Madrid bombs was that enough Spanish voters changed their minds, either by changing their vote or by actually going out to vote in order to change opinion poll predictions. There are three possible reasons as far as I can see: they punished the lies and equivocations of the government, two: they felt that Zapatero and the PSOE is better equipped to deal with the new emergency and three: a technical reason, that the higher turnout was made up of previously half-committed PSOE voters.
If the second reason is dominant, then, broadly speaking, we have two possible motivations. First, that those voters feel that by withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq, they will be safe from future attack; the appeasement, or Danegeld argument. Secondly, that this radical Islamic terrorism is best faced by a combined effort of the international community under as broad an umbrella as possible (in Zapatero’s case, he wants to see the UN take over in Iraq).
Coming back to Italy (and the UK, Denmark and Poland all of whom have troops in Iraq), the debate has to be put in terms of how best to deal with the threat which we face (and no doubt even those countries which opposed the war as well). Radical Islamic violence is not just or even primarily aimed at the so-called “West”. Moderate and secular Islamic countries bore the initial brunt of the movement for most of the ‘90s – in Algeria, in Morocco, in Egypt and in Afghanistan. Invading one of those secular countries however brutal a dictatorship Saddam’s Iraq was, has only stoked the fires of Islamic radicalism, allowed it into Iraq, provided fertile recruitment ground for many others, Arab and non-Arab.
But Iraq has been invaded and is policed by a largely foreign force which cannot be removed without causing a complete disaster for west and east alike. So the only way to begin to rebuild consensus and begin to dry up the sources of Islamic radicalism is to make the soldiers into peacekeepers rather than occupiers and give responsibility to the international community. Angelo Panebianco in to-day’s Corriere argues that the Spanish threat to withdraw the troops is the equivalent of Munich 1938. He has misread time and place; the parallels are with Dayton 1995 which began the Balkan piece process. To widen the legality and the responsibility of the foreign presence in Iraq is the opposite of appeasement.
This is hardly an original hope but it is one based on the methods used to successfully stop political radicals in Italy from using terrorist methods. Mr. Zapatero’s victory on Sunday is a model for those in the rest of Europe who were against the invasion of Iraq and who were convinced that tanks and missiles encourage terrorism rather than curb it. The left in Italy, Britain and Denmark will use it in June’s European Parliament elections; the right and Tony Blair are warned that their military support of the US has a political price tag.
And what do we do about it?
In the 1930s, Aldous Huxley observed wryly that it would take a Martian invasion for humankind to unite; something like that happened briefly yesterday for Europeans as the whole continent stopped in silence for three minutes at midday. Here in Rome the Italian tricolour, the European stars and the city banners had all been at half mast for the previous three days and the shock and solidarity went way beyond media hype and political leaders in dark suits and with grave faces.
But already yesterday, from the moment the Spanish election results were clear, the bickering began again. It is louder here to be sure as is the Italian custom but the underlying issues cut across the continent. They are issues which deserve to be debated carefully, not dispassionately but with accuracy and with as little mystification as possible. It probably will not happen and the tones will be strident and based on deep-seated prejudices walled in by powerful rhetoric and doubtful logic.
But here is an attempt to move in the other direction.
On the increasingly likely hypothesis that the Madrid bombs were a radical Islamic attack, they are traumatic to Europeans for two reasons. The first is the scale of the carnage; the biggest previous attacks, Bologna in 1980 and Omagh in 1998 did not reach three figures. The second, and I think more disturbing element is the alien and for most people totally incomprehensible aim of the attack. Whether it was the IRA, red or black terrorism in Italy, or Spain’s own Basques, these were objectives that most of us can relate to, understand and put in historical and cultural context and then elaborate ways of fighting back.
There is a parallel here in the United States between Oklahoma and 9/11. The first was horrendous in scale but was the work of a lone (American) fanatic. The results are terrible for the bereaved and for the city but did not change society. 9/11 clearly did and not only because of the scale of death and destruction but because of the near invisibility of the enemy.
It has always puzzled me why chemical weapons have been banned soon after their invention while other more traditional weapons continued to kill. Is it worse to die from mustard gas burning your lungs or shrapnel disembowelling you? The reason, or at least one reason, is the perceived insidiousness of gas as opposed to an explosive shell. So it is with this new kind of terrorism.
Most of Europe has had direct experience of terrorism in the last forty years. Sometimes the targets were random, the French Secret Army Organisation, the OAS, the Italian right, sometimes the Basques and both sides of the Northern Irish divide. Other times it was targeted, the Italian left, the Basques again and Ulster again. There were moments when both society and governments were put under serious stress and there were deep divisions. Today’s threat is different because it seems to come from outside our society and threaten the whole of it as much as we can understand.
So we should have the Martian effect with all of Europe united and united with the US. We don’t because since the threat is so vague, there cannot be a single response or even agreement on how the threat is articulated.
The first political effect of the Madrid bombs was that enough Spanish voters changed their minds, either by changing their vote or by actually going out to vote in order to change opinion poll predictions. There are three possible reasons as far as I can see: they punished the lies and equivocations of the government, two: they felt that Zapatero and the PSOE is better equipped to deal with the new emergency and three: a technical reason, that the higher turnout was made up of previously half-committed PSOE voters.
If the second reason is dominant, then, broadly speaking, we have two possible motivations. First, that those voters feel that by withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq, they will be safe from future attack; the appeasement, or Danegeld argument. Secondly, that this radical Islamic terrorism is best faced by a combined effort of the international community under as broad an umbrella as possible (in Zapatero’s case, he wants to see the UN take over in Iraq).
Coming back to Italy (and the UK, Denmark and Poland all of whom have troops in Iraq), the debate has to be put in terms of how best to deal with the threat which we face (and no doubt even those countries which opposed the war as well). Radical Islamic violence is not just or even primarily aimed at the so-called “West”. Moderate and secular Islamic countries bore the initial brunt of the movement for most of the ‘90s – in Algeria, in Morocco, in Egypt and in Afghanistan. Invading one of those secular countries however brutal a dictatorship Saddam’s Iraq was, has only stoked the fires of Islamic radicalism, allowed it into Iraq, provided fertile recruitment ground for many others, Arab and non-Arab.
But Iraq has been invaded and is policed by a largely foreign force which cannot be removed without causing a complete disaster for west and east alike. So the only way to begin to rebuild consensus and begin to dry up the sources of Islamic radicalism is to make the soldiers into peacekeepers rather than occupiers and give responsibility to the international community. Angelo Panebianco in to-day’s Corriere argues that the Spanish threat to withdraw the troops is the equivalent of Munich 1938. He has misread time and place; the parallels are with Dayton 1995 which began the Balkan piece process. To widen the legality and the responsibility of the foreign presence in Iraq is the opposite of appeasement.
This is hardly an original hope but it is one based on the methods used to successfully stop political radicals in Italy from using terrorist methods. Mr. Zapatero’s victory on Sunday is a model for those in the rest of Europe who were against the invasion of Iraq and who were convinced that tanks and missiles encourage terrorism rather than curb it. The left in Italy, Britain and Denmark will use it in June’s European Parliament elections; the right and Tony Blair are warned that their military support of the US has a political price tag.
Monday, March 01, 2004
Telekom Srbija: scandal or electioneering?
In the general scheme of things political in Italy, the Telekom Serbia story is pretty low in terms of real significance even in its effects on politicians let alone on the rest of the country. But it does provide a useful microscope with which to examine the broader workings of the system.
Last week saw one of the chief accusers being arrested and charged with perjury and at the moment, at least, it looks as if the story will deflate and disappear.
Like all good scandal stories, Telekom Serbia had layers under layers and it was never clear if the right metaphor was an onion where you peel and peel and end up with nothing, or an artichoke where at the end of the leaves, there is a succulent heart covered with a spiky beard. Today we are closer to the onion.
There were alleged bribes and slush funds; there are shady Balkan and Italian characters, top names in Italian politics as well as of course Slobodan Milosevic, respectable and louche bankers and their agents in London, Switzerland and Monte Carlo. Magistrates, parliamentarians and journalists are all searching for the truth, or for some, the most useful “truth”. Beneath the hype was the more banal possibility of a badly thought out deal with insufficient political control exercised, one one which seemed a good idea at the time and then turned out to be much less of one.
First of all the few facts which almost no one disputes: on 9 June 1997, Italian Telecom, then a state-owned company, bought a 29% share in Telekom Serbia for 843 million D-marks. The shares were sold back to the now privatised Telecom Italia in February 2003 for 193 million euros. Beyond this, all is interpretation, hypothesis or evidence before court and Parliament.
The accusation from the centre-right is that a good portion of the purchase price went into a Milosevic slush fund and thus indirectly contibuted to the war crimes he is accused of. Worse for the centre-left as we move towards European elections this year and Italian ones in ‘06, are the allegations that then senior members of government received hefty kickbacks on the deal. Happen that two of the names belong to present leaders of the Olive: then Prime Minister Romano Prodi and Undersecretary for Foreign Trade, and Piero Fassino, the most likely Prime Ministerial and Deputy Prime Ministerial candidates in ‘06; the third name is Lamberto Dini, then the Foreign Minister and still an important figure. At one stage last year, a whole raft of Olive leaders’ names was being bandied about from Mastella to Veltroni to Rutelli. Finally, there is a shadow in the background, the then Economics Minister, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, now President and therefore supposedly worthy of respect and above party politicking. Still, he has already blocked the government’s media reform bill and Mr. Berlusconi has been clear that he does not appreciate the President’s powers so any lever on the person or the insitution is useful.
The slush fund story was broken by the centre-left Repubblica in 2001 but for most of last year, it was the ultra-pro-Berlusconi Libero and the Prime Minister’s brother’s paper, Giornale which made the running so much so that DS leader Piero Fassino accused Mr. Berlusconi of being the “puppetmaster” organising a campaign of defamation.
There are judicial investigations in Turin which began in 2001, looking into possible bribes, fraud and tax offences around the deal plus accusations of kickbacks. The two main witnesses accusing the centre-left politicians have now been indicted, one for money-laundering last year and the other, Antonio Volpe, for perjury last week. At the same time, a special Parliamentary Committee was set up in 2002 to investigate the possible political involvement. It only had the support of the centre-right.
With Volpe’s arrest, the centre-left is trying to close the Parliamentary Commission saying that Volpe’s perjury is proof that the whole “scandal” was invented. The government is playing for time. Mr. Berlusconi has repeated that the deal was a mistake though he has retreated from saying it was criminal. The centrist UDC Marco Follini has suggested a compromise where Prodi and the others will admit to political or economic errors and any suggestion of criminal activity will be dropped.
It is not going to happen; Mr. Prodi has already explained that the deal actually profitted the Treasury as Telecom shares went up between the Serbia purchase and privatisaiton (Repubblica.it/politica: Prodi: "Con Telekom S...). In any case the bitter accusations have been so serious that it has become impossible to discuss the merits of the business.
Arguably, the deal was justified both politically, diplomatically and economically in 1997 and arguably with hindsight it turned out to be a mistake on all counts. There is also a fair chance that some of the commissions paid ended up in the hands of shady middlemen. But we are not going to hear those arguments or the evidence, at least not in the near future.
If, as seems likely today, the Prodi-Fassino-Dini connection is shown to be a complete fabrication, there will always be the lingering doubts. We know that there will always be the possibility of disclosures close to the elections; on the other side, the substance of the deal will not be aired and above all, the presumptions of guilt, innocence and conspiracy will continue for months, years and maybe decades.
In the general scheme of things political in Italy, the Telekom Serbia story is pretty low in terms of real significance even in its effects on politicians let alone on the rest of the country. But it does provide a useful microscope with which to examine the broader workings of the system.
Last week saw one of the chief accusers being arrested and charged with perjury and at the moment, at least, it looks as if the story will deflate and disappear.
Like all good scandal stories, Telekom Serbia had layers under layers and it was never clear if the right metaphor was an onion where you peel and peel and end up with nothing, or an artichoke where at the end of the leaves, there is a succulent heart covered with a spiky beard. Today we are closer to the onion.
There were alleged bribes and slush funds; there are shady Balkan and Italian characters, top names in Italian politics as well as of course Slobodan Milosevic, respectable and louche bankers and their agents in London, Switzerland and Monte Carlo. Magistrates, parliamentarians and journalists are all searching for the truth, or for some, the most useful “truth”. Beneath the hype was the more banal possibility of a badly thought out deal with insufficient political control exercised, one one which seemed a good idea at the time and then turned out to be much less of one.
First of all the few facts which almost no one disputes: on 9 June 1997, Italian Telecom, then a state-owned company, bought a 29% share in Telekom Serbia for 843 million D-marks. The shares were sold back to the now privatised Telecom Italia in February 2003 for 193 million euros. Beyond this, all is interpretation, hypothesis or evidence before court and Parliament.
The accusation from the centre-right is that a good portion of the purchase price went into a Milosevic slush fund and thus indirectly contibuted to the war crimes he is accused of. Worse for the centre-left as we move towards European elections this year and Italian ones in ‘06, are the allegations that then senior members of government received hefty kickbacks on the deal. Happen that two of the names belong to present leaders of the Olive: then Prime Minister Romano Prodi and Undersecretary for Foreign Trade, and Piero Fassino, the most likely Prime Ministerial and Deputy Prime Ministerial candidates in ‘06; the third name is Lamberto Dini, then the Foreign Minister and still an important figure. At one stage last year, a whole raft of Olive leaders’ names was being bandied about from Mastella to Veltroni to Rutelli. Finally, there is a shadow in the background, the then Economics Minister, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, now President and therefore supposedly worthy of respect and above party politicking. Still, he has already blocked the government’s media reform bill and Mr. Berlusconi has been clear that he does not appreciate the President’s powers so any lever on the person or the insitution is useful.
The slush fund story was broken by the centre-left Repubblica in 2001 but for most of last year, it was the ultra-pro-Berlusconi Libero and the Prime Minister’s brother’s paper, Giornale which made the running so much so that DS leader Piero Fassino accused Mr. Berlusconi of being the “puppetmaster” organising a campaign of defamation.
There are judicial investigations in Turin which began in 2001, looking into possible bribes, fraud and tax offences around the deal plus accusations of kickbacks. The two main witnesses accusing the centre-left politicians have now been indicted, one for money-laundering last year and the other, Antonio Volpe, for perjury last week. At the same time, a special Parliamentary Committee was set up in 2002 to investigate the possible political involvement. It only had the support of the centre-right.
With Volpe’s arrest, the centre-left is trying to close the Parliamentary Commission saying that Volpe’s perjury is proof that the whole “scandal” was invented. The government is playing for time. Mr. Berlusconi has repeated that the deal was a mistake though he has retreated from saying it was criminal. The centrist UDC Marco Follini has suggested a compromise where Prodi and the others will admit to political or economic errors and any suggestion of criminal activity will be dropped.
It is not going to happen; Mr. Prodi has already explained that the deal actually profitted the Treasury as Telecom shares went up between the Serbia purchase and privatisaiton (Repubblica.it/politica: Prodi: "Con Telekom S...). In any case the bitter accusations have been so serious that it has become impossible to discuss the merits of the business.
Arguably, the deal was justified both politically, diplomatically and economically in 1997 and arguably with hindsight it turned out to be a mistake on all counts. There is also a fair chance that some of the commissions paid ended up in the hands of shady middlemen. But we are not going to hear those arguments or the evidence, at least not in the near future.
If, as seems likely today, the Prodi-Fassino-Dini connection is shown to be a complete fabrication, there will always be the lingering doubts. We know that there will always be the possibility of disclosures close to the elections; on the other side, the substance of the deal will not be aired and above all, the presumptions of guilt, innocence and conspiracy will continue for months, years and maybe decades.
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
This week the blog is by Nora Galli de’ Paratesi who has just published “La lingua di Berlusconi” in MicroMega (1-2004) p.85, and who will be speaking at The American University of Rome on Wednesday 25 February (see details at the end of the article).
Silvio’s verbal incontinence; or does he really mean it?
Nora Galli de’ Paratesi
This last week has confirmed Silvio Berlusconi’s reputation as a politician who speaks his mind on all subjects whatever the consequences.
He has accused politicians of being good-for-nothing thieves who have never done an honest day’s work in their lives. Then he said when taxes are more than a third of income, tax evasion is “morally authorised” and then, on Sunday afternoon when most of the country was glued to the television watching the football matches, he monopolised the airwaves with detailed advice to his football team’s coach. Even his friend Vladimir would not dare to hog the limelight so much.
But the attack on politicians, especially opposition ones is an old tune which he has free associated on before, especially when he began as a politician himself. The professional politician is the negative model with which he compares himself. He is “new” and therefore clean and good. It was a club to break the opposition.
The language that Berlusconi uses about politics and politicians is charged with contempt. Not having achieved anything else in life apart from having been a professional politician for him amounts to failure. One’s success, one’s being a winner must be measured against something else. What it takes to work in politics is merely to transfer not very uncommon non political (and therefore real) experiences and get on wih it. The panoply of metaphors that he uses are revealing: politics is like a family, a home which any good pater familias can run; it is like an enterprise, an ordinary one not a giant one, that one can manage with common sense; it is like a condominium, where the property is with all of us and the running with an administrative “light” state at our service, with the magistrates as mere “staff” (do they clean the stairs?). Inequality of resources and opportunities can be dealt with by solidarity, the pious, Catholic unilateral remedy that can be dispensed by the privileged if and when they feel like it, but it is not a right that can be exercised or a problem that presents complex functionl relationships between social benefits and expenses, workers’ rights and public moral duties. The dimensions suggested by these metaphors are diminutive, domestic, derogative and unworthy of “big” and unpleasant words like ethics, social strife, incompatibility. They evoke reassuring and anesthesised domains, like home, shop or nursery or some kind of fairyland in which cakes can be eaten and had on a shelf with lots of toys by greedy children.
If denigrating professional politicians is original from one who has spent 10 years in Parliament, a prime minister who encourages tax evasion is decidedly curious: “if you ask a citizen to pay a third in taxes, he’ll pay; if it’s half his income, he feels he’s morally authorised to evade.
This is an old friend; it appeared in his early speeches; in 1988 he was even stronger when he said 50% was “theft”. The justification? “Our minds and our hearts”.
Then on Sunday, 22 February, he used the public broadcaster to give tactical instructions to the football team he owns, Milan.
Berlusconi’s relationship with football is a key point in his private and political persona. The football game metaphor, that existed before him in journalistic language, has flourished and prospered in his language as a huge totem, a magic fable. The reasons are more than one: sport has always been a political metaphor because it is a sublimation af war and war is an image close to the heart of politicians (it will be interesting to see what happens when more women join the game); it is also in his case a domain in which he is a winner (not a loser like left-wing politicians) and therefore it smacks of machismo as well as power, his own power; football is the national sport. But above all it is a game and, as such, an anasthetised world in which only enjoyment is at stake. When one reads his speeches, the image that is evoked of his voters, his accolytes and himself is the one of spotty, podgy preadolescents with knobbly, cold, red knees running around screeching in the school playground. An encouragement to regression, amusement and superficiality, and therefore a special communicative channel between him and “my voters”. That, he thinks, allows a prime minister to use public television time and resources to be close to “his people” in the domain of Neverland, rather than use his image and energy for the domain of politics as a dignified, serious realm of ideas to which his actual role should confine him.
The Department of International Relations
The American University of Rome
Via P. Roselli 4, 00158 Rome
25 Feb 18.30 – 20.00 B204 Seminar “Berlusconispeak – Italy’s new political language”
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email: International Relations internationalrelations@aur.edu
Silvio’s verbal incontinence; or does he really mean it?
Nora Galli de’ Paratesi
This last week has confirmed Silvio Berlusconi’s reputation as a politician who speaks his mind on all subjects whatever the consequences.
He has accused politicians of being good-for-nothing thieves who have never done an honest day’s work in their lives. Then he said when taxes are more than a third of income, tax evasion is “morally authorised” and then, on Sunday afternoon when most of the country was glued to the television watching the football matches, he monopolised the airwaves with detailed advice to his football team’s coach. Even his friend Vladimir would not dare to hog the limelight so much.
But the attack on politicians, especially opposition ones is an old tune which he has free associated on before, especially when he began as a politician himself. The professional politician is the negative model with which he compares himself. He is “new” and therefore clean and good. It was a club to break the opposition.
The language that Berlusconi uses about politics and politicians is charged with contempt. Not having achieved anything else in life apart from having been a professional politician for him amounts to failure. One’s success, one’s being a winner must be measured against something else. What it takes to work in politics is merely to transfer not very uncommon non political (and therefore real) experiences and get on wih it. The panoply of metaphors that he uses are revealing: politics is like a family, a home which any good pater familias can run; it is like an enterprise, an ordinary one not a giant one, that one can manage with common sense; it is like a condominium, where the property is with all of us and the running with an administrative “light” state at our service, with the magistrates as mere “staff” (do they clean the stairs?). Inequality of resources and opportunities can be dealt with by solidarity, the pious, Catholic unilateral remedy that can be dispensed by the privileged if and when they feel like it, but it is not a right that can be exercised or a problem that presents complex functionl relationships between social benefits and expenses, workers’ rights and public moral duties. The dimensions suggested by these metaphors are diminutive, domestic, derogative and unworthy of “big” and unpleasant words like ethics, social strife, incompatibility. They evoke reassuring and anesthesised domains, like home, shop or nursery or some kind of fairyland in which cakes can be eaten and had on a shelf with lots of toys by greedy children.
If denigrating professional politicians is original from one who has spent 10 years in Parliament, a prime minister who encourages tax evasion is decidedly curious: “if you ask a citizen to pay a third in taxes, he’ll pay; if it’s half his income, he feels he’s morally authorised to evade.
This is an old friend; it appeared in his early speeches; in 1988 he was even stronger when he said 50% was “theft”. The justification? “Our minds and our hearts”.
Then on Sunday, 22 February, he used the public broadcaster to give tactical instructions to the football team he owns, Milan.
Berlusconi’s relationship with football is a key point in his private and political persona. The football game metaphor, that existed before him in journalistic language, has flourished and prospered in his language as a huge totem, a magic fable. The reasons are more than one: sport has always been a political metaphor because it is a sublimation af war and war is an image close to the heart of politicians (it will be interesting to see what happens when more women join the game); it is also in his case a domain in which he is a winner (not a loser like left-wing politicians) and therefore it smacks of machismo as well as power, his own power; football is the national sport. But above all it is a game and, as such, an anasthetised world in which only enjoyment is at stake. When one reads his speeches, the image that is evoked of his voters, his accolytes and himself is the one of spotty, podgy preadolescents with knobbly, cold, red knees running around screeching in the school playground. An encouragement to regression, amusement and superficiality, and therefore a special communicative channel between him and “my voters”. That, he thinks, allows a prime minister to use public television time and resources to be close to “his people” in the domain of Neverland, rather than use his image and energy for the domain of politics as a dignified, serious realm of ideas to which his actual role should confine him.
The Department of International Relations
The American University of Rome
Via P. Roselli 4, 00158 Rome
25 Feb 18.30 – 20.00 B204 Seminar “Berlusconispeak – Italy’s new political language”
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email: International Relations internationalrelations@aur.edu
Monday, February 16, 2004
“United we stand…” at least for the moment
The Roman poet Trilussa did not have many illusions about politics; a latterday Aesop, his animals illustrated very human foibles. In that fateful year of 1922, he described a feline get-together. It was the Socialist Congress of Intransigent Cats where one delegate exhorted his fellow moggies thus:
No, compagni! E’ necessario/ch’ogni membro der partito, favorevole o contrario,/ nun se squaji e resti unito./ P’evità l’inconveniente/c’è un rimedio solamente:/ se legamo tutti assieme/pe’ la coda, e famo in modo/che se un gatto vô annà avanti/è obbrigato de sta’ ar chiodo, ’ché, se tira, strigne er nodo/e stracina tutti quanti. [No, comrades! It is necessary/ that every party member whether he’s for or against/ doesn’t split and stays united/ To get over this/ there is only one answer:/ we must tie ourselves together/ by the tail and we’ll do it in such a way/ that if one cat wants to go forward/ he’s obliged to stand still because if he pulls, he tightens the knot/ and pulls everyone after him.]
Instead of tying tails together so that all will move united, a triumphal “convention” in Rome this weekend decided that the two big parties of the centre-left and two of the smaller ones would fight June’s European Parliament elections from a single list of candidates.
The high point was when Romano Prodi, a non-candidate, gave a rousing speech against an unnamed opponent; he is going to stay as President of the European Commission until the end of October and he was not going to even mention Berlusconi. The other leaders all reiterated their commitment to work together towards the immediate goal of winning the EP and Italian regional elections in four months time and the long-term goal of winning the Italian elections probably in 2006.
In practical terms this means that the Democratici di Sinistra, the Margherita, the Social Democrats (SDI) and the European Republicans will present a single list of candidates under the symbol “United for the Olive Tree”. The first two make up just over 30% of the Italian Parliament and are the backbone of the opposition led by Piero Fassino and Francesco Rutelli. The other two are the rumps of two parties from the “first republic”; the SDI is led by Enrico Boselli and went left (Craxi’s supporters went rightwards either to tiny parties or into Forza Italia) while the already minute Republican Party also split with Giorgio La Malfa going right and Luciana Sbarbarti going to the Olive. The “convention” was also a way of bringing in the grass roots and fringe groups, the so-called girotondi and movimenti. They have grown up spontaneously over the last couple of years, a sign of the frustration felt by centre-left sympathisers towards the official parties. To really bring them on board would be a huge fillip for the centre-left.
The elections are still fought with preference votes which means that voters will be able to choose which candidates they prefer and there will no doubt be big fights within the list over personalities as well as policies but it is a first step towards a united front in 2006 where most seats are won on a first past the post system.
Left out of the arrangements on the right is Clemente Mastella’s UDEUR and on the left, the Greens and Communists and not surprisingly, Bertinotti’s “neo-coms” of Rifondazione, on the other side is Di Pietro and a small breakaway group from the DS.
The declaration of intent (l'Unità online-La dichiarazione di intenti...) is just that, a vague and hopeful document but very much a small beginning. It is based on Romano Prodi’s January statement and promises a detailed manifesto for the election to be drawn up by former prime minister, Giuliano Amato.
But to win elections, you need a leader, a programme and organisation.
The leader is there, albeit waiting in the wings. Prodi was stabbed in the back last time in 1998 and he is a more cautious man today but in his apparently bumbling way, he has already shown that he can beat Berlusconi and could certainly do so again. In 1996 he also showed that he could draw up a manifesto; he won with it as did Berlusconi with his “Contract with the Italians” in 2001. The organisation is the difficult part. It is not only Trilussa’s cats who are intransigent; the bane of Italian politics has always been glorification of division: “better to stick to my principles (and tho’ I do not admit it, my position) than compromise”. The ultimate success of the weekend’s meeting can only be judged by the number who do accept compromise.
All in all, “United for the Olive Tree” is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a centre-left victory and there will have to be a lot more work if they are not to end up like the Intransigent Socialist Cats, scattered by a large and fierce black (shirted) dog.
Please let us know if you do not want to receive the blog and let us know of others who do want to receive it:
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http://italpolblog.blogspot.com/
email: International Relations internationalrelations@aur.edu
The Roman poet Trilussa did not have many illusions about politics; a latterday Aesop, his animals illustrated very human foibles. In that fateful year of 1922, he described a feline get-together. It was the Socialist Congress of Intransigent Cats where one delegate exhorted his fellow moggies thus:
No, compagni! E’ necessario/ch’ogni membro der partito, favorevole o contrario,/ nun se squaji e resti unito./ P’evità l’inconveniente/c’è un rimedio solamente:/ se legamo tutti assieme/pe’ la coda, e famo in modo/che se un gatto vô annà avanti/è obbrigato de sta’ ar chiodo, ’ché, se tira, strigne er nodo/e stracina tutti quanti. [No, comrades! It is necessary/ that every party member whether he’s for or against/ doesn’t split and stays united/ To get over this/ there is only one answer:/ we must tie ourselves together/ by the tail and we’ll do it in such a way/ that if one cat wants to go forward/ he’s obliged to stand still because if he pulls, he tightens the knot/ and pulls everyone after him.]
Instead of tying tails together so that all will move united, a triumphal “convention” in Rome this weekend decided that the two big parties of the centre-left and two of the smaller ones would fight June’s European Parliament elections from a single list of candidates.
The high point was when Romano Prodi, a non-candidate, gave a rousing speech against an unnamed opponent; he is going to stay as President of the European Commission until the end of October and he was not going to even mention Berlusconi. The other leaders all reiterated their commitment to work together towards the immediate goal of winning the EP and Italian regional elections in four months time and the long-term goal of winning the Italian elections probably in 2006.
In practical terms this means that the Democratici di Sinistra, the Margherita, the Social Democrats (SDI) and the European Republicans will present a single list of candidates under the symbol “United for the Olive Tree”. The first two make up just over 30% of the Italian Parliament and are the backbone of the opposition led by Piero Fassino and Francesco Rutelli. The other two are the rumps of two parties from the “first republic”; the SDI is led by Enrico Boselli and went left (Craxi’s supporters went rightwards either to tiny parties or into Forza Italia) while the already minute Republican Party also split with Giorgio La Malfa going right and Luciana Sbarbarti going to the Olive. The “convention” was also a way of bringing in the grass roots and fringe groups, the so-called girotondi and movimenti. They have grown up spontaneously over the last couple of years, a sign of the frustration felt by centre-left sympathisers towards the official parties. To really bring them on board would be a huge fillip for the centre-left.
The elections are still fought with preference votes which means that voters will be able to choose which candidates they prefer and there will no doubt be big fights within the list over personalities as well as policies but it is a first step towards a united front in 2006 where most seats are won on a first past the post system.
Left out of the arrangements on the right is Clemente Mastella’s UDEUR and on the left, the Greens and Communists and not surprisingly, Bertinotti’s “neo-coms” of Rifondazione, on the other side is Di Pietro and a small breakaway group from the DS.
The declaration of intent (l'Unità online-La dichiarazione di intenti...) is just that, a vague and hopeful document but very much a small beginning. It is based on Romano Prodi’s January statement and promises a detailed manifesto for the election to be drawn up by former prime minister, Giuliano Amato.
But to win elections, you need a leader, a programme and organisation.
The leader is there, albeit waiting in the wings. Prodi was stabbed in the back last time in 1998 and he is a more cautious man today but in his apparently bumbling way, he has already shown that he can beat Berlusconi and could certainly do so again. In 1996 he also showed that he could draw up a manifesto; he won with it as did Berlusconi with his “Contract with the Italians” in 2001. The organisation is the difficult part. It is not only Trilussa’s cats who are intransigent; the bane of Italian politics has always been glorification of division: “better to stick to my principles (and tho’ I do not admit it, my position) than compromise”. The ultimate success of the weekend’s meeting can only be judged by the number who do accept compromise.
All in all, “United for the Olive Tree” is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a centre-left victory and there will have to be a lot more work if they are not to end up like the Intransigent Socialist Cats, scattered by a large and fierce black (shirted) dog.
Please let us know if you do not want to receive the blog and let us know of others who do want to receive it:
The blog’s address for back numbers is:
http://italpolblog.blogspot.com/
email: International Relations internationalrelations@aur.edu
Sunday, February 08, 2004
Religious freedoms in Italy – the Concordats 75 and 20 years on
Seventy five years ago on Wednesday, on 11 February 1929, Italy and the Vatican were “reconciled”. Three treaties were signed in which Pope Pius XI recognised the legitimacy of the Kingdom of Italy, which had removed most of his predecessor Pius IX’s temporal powers. It was the solution to “the Roman Question” which had blighted the first 60 years of united Italy and which had been at the basis of a troubled relationship between Church and State.
On one side, the Vatican and successive Popes were loath to forego their temporal powers; on the other, the young Italy had doubts about her real sovereignty and independence with such a large cuckoo in the nest. As a result, for most of Italy’s history, “religious issues” have invariably consisted of tension between a nominally secular Italy and Roman Catholicism represented by the Vatican and the Church in Italy (not always the same thing).
One of the 1929 treaties was a concordat, an agreement between the Vatican and another state regulating the status of the Roman Catholic Church in that country. This one gave priests special protection under the law, special tax concessions for Church income and property, religious education in schools was put under the control of the episcopate, Church marriages were recognised and Catholicism became the state religion. Secular Italians fought for a 19th Century separation but with little success, especially in the Christian Democrat period from 1945 to 1992. In most Italian villages until at least the ‘60s, the parish church carried more political weight than the DC section.
In 1984, 20 years ago next week, the Concordat was revised; Catholicism maintained some of its privileges but there was - at least in theory - more pluralism possible in religious education at school (though the Church maintains its prerogative in choosing teachers) and taxpayers were able to choose to give part of their taxes to the Church.
Over the whole period and until very recently, other religions were hardly present and in practice not perceived. When a group of Jewish refugees arrived in an Alpine village during World War II, the kind and welcoming parish priest exhorted his flock to look after them because even if they spoke a foreign language, were city folk and different in so many ways, they were after all “cristiani come noi”, Christians like us.
There was no irony to the remark as “cristiano” meant and for many still means just a human being. Now, though, Italians are having to come to terms with religious differences. There are perhaps 400,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses and many other smaller non-Catholic Christians, mostly dismissed by the hierarchy as “sects,” but who have growing followings. The biggest single non-Catholic group are the Muslims, maybe a million, coming from a wide variety of national origins.
There have been requests by some Muslim communities for separate gym facilities for boys and girls in state schools, for prayer areas and for halal meat. The first request has been turned down so far but without a firm declaration of principle; the other two requests have usually been fulfilled, at least when possible practically.
Far more controversial was the case last year when a very vocal Italian Muslim, Adel Smith demanded that the crucifix in his daughter’s school be taken down. He won his case but the uproar was such that the school appealed and, for a moment at least, Italy discovered that it was still a Christian country. Previously, the only calls for the removal of crosses from public spaces came from secularists and were usually unsuccessful.
The defence of the crucifix was so heated that if I believed in conspiracy theories I might have thought the whole affair was a fiendishly clever Vatican conspiracy to kill secularism in the country and insert references to Europe’s “Christian roots” in the EU’s Constitution then being discussed. But I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, though I am sure that the French and now German debate on laicité will spill over into Italy. Mr. Smith has promised to continue his battle, providing much heat but little light, while the wider debate might just provide another opportunity for Italy to develop into a pluralist and multi-cultural society.
If so, it will be the previous dominance of the Church that ironically prevents French extremes. Precisely because religion in Italy has been a matter of politics and power more than spirituality, open to compromise rather than dogma there are good chances of compromises as new religions grow.
For most Italians, the crucifix has little overt religious significance; it adorns churches of course but few Italians consider them very spiritual. And among the “faithful,” it hangs stylishly over bronzed and muscular torsos or between decoratively supported cleavages. To turn the headscarf or hejab into a fashion statement would be a very Italian way of dealing with the question.
Already the media remind us of Eid, the Chinese New Year, Yom Kippur, unheard of even a decade ago. Despite the long battles between the Church and the secularists, Italy does not have France’s militant revolutionary secular tradition and will never be a completely secular country, but it won’t be fundamentalist either.
The Department of International Relations at The American University of Rome will be marking the Concordats’ anniversaries with a seminar:
11 Feb. 18.30 - 20.00 B204 Seminar "Religious freedoms in Italy 75 years after the Lateran Pacts"
The relationship between Church and State in Italy has never been straightforward and seldom been easy. Before unification, the Pope was one of the many sovereigns reigning in Italy, a political actor as well as a spiritual one. The Lateran Pacts answered “the Roman Question” but created new questions. Seventy five years on and 20 years after the revision of the Concordat, the role of religion in Italy is being questioned once again as the country becomes multi-religious for the first time since the Roman empire. John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter will look at "Church/State Relations in an Increasingly Pluralistic Italy". Anna Foa Professor of Modern History at the University of Rome, Sapienza, “The Church and the religious freedom in Italy (1848-1929)”, Giulio Ercolessi, Fondazione Critica liberale “Secularism in Italy”
Please let us know if you do not want to receive the blog:
The blog’s address is http://italpolblog.blogspot.com/
International Relations email is internationalrelations@aur.edu
Seventy five years ago on Wednesday, on 11 February 1929, Italy and the Vatican were “reconciled”. Three treaties were signed in which Pope Pius XI recognised the legitimacy of the Kingdom of Italy, which had removed most of his predecessor Pius IX’s temporal powers. It was the solution to “the Roman Question” which had blighted the first 60 years of united Italy and which had been at the basis of a troubled relationship between Church and State.
On one side, the Vatican and successive Popes were loath to forego their temporal powers; on the other, the young Italy had doubts about her real sovereignty and independence with such a large cuckoo in the nest. As a result, for most of Italy’s history, “religious issues” have invariably consisted of tension between a nominally secular Italy and Roman Catholicism represented by the Vatican and the Church in Italy (not always the same thing).
One of the 1929 treaties was a concordat, an agreement between the Vatican and another state regulating the status of the Roman Catholic Church in that country. This one gave priests special protection under the law, special tax concessions for Church income and property, religious education in schools was put under the control of the episcopate, Church marriages were recognised and Catholicism became the state religion. Secular Italians fought for a 19th Century separation but with little success, especially in the Christian Democrat period from 1945 to 1992. In most Italian villages until at least the ‘60s, the parish church carried more political weight than the DC section.
In 1984, 20 years ago next week, the Concordat was revised; Catholicism maintained some of its privileges but there was - at least in theory - more pluralism possible in religious education at school (though the Church maintains its prerogative in choosing teachers) and taxpayers were able to choose to give part of their taxes to the Church.
Over the whole period and until very recently, other religions were hardly present and in practice not perceived. When a group of Jewish refugees arrived in an Alpine village during World War II, the kind and welcoming parish priest exhorted his flock to look after them because even if they spoke a foreign language, were city folk and different in so many ways, they were after all “cristiani come noi”, Christians like us.
There was no irony to the remark as “cristiano” meant and for many still means just a human being. Now, though, Italians are having to come to terms with religious differences. There are perhaps 400,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses and many other smaller non-Catholic Christians, mostly dismissed by the hierarchy as “sects,” but who have growing followings. The biggest single non-Catholic group are the Muslims, maybe a million, coming from a wide variety of national origins.
There have been requests by some Muslim communities for separate gym facilities for boys and girls in state schools, for prayer areas and for halal meat. The first request has been turned down so far but without a firm declaration of principle; the other two requests have usually been fulfilled, at least when possible practically.
Far more controversial was the case last year when a very vocal Italian Muslim, Adel Smith demanded that the crucifix in his daughter’s school be taken down. He won his case but the uproar was such that the school appealed and, for a moment at least, Italy discovered that it was still a Christian country. Previously, the only calls for the removal of crosses from public spaces came from secularists and were usually unsuccessful.
The defence of the crucifix was so heated that if I believed in conspiracy theories I might have thought the whole affair was a fiendishly clever Vatican conspiracy to kill secularism in the country and insert references to Europe’s “Christian roots” in the EU’s Constitution then being discussed. But I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, though I am sure that the French and now German debate on laicité will spill over into Italy. Mr. Smith has promised to continue his battle, providing much heat but little light, while the wider debate might just provide another opportunity for Italy to develop into a pluralist and multi-cultural society.
If so, it will be the previous dominance of the Church that ironically prevents French extremes. Precisely because religion in Italy has been a matter of politics and power more than spirituality, open to compromise rather than dogma there are good chances of compromises as new religions grow.
For most Italians, the crucifix has little overt religious significance; it adorns churches of course but few Italians consider them very spiritual. And among the “faithful,” it hangs stylishly over bronzed and muscular torsos or between decoratively supported cleavages. To turn the headscarf or hejab into a fashion statement would be a very Italian way of dealing with the question.
Already the media remind us of Eid, the Chinese New Year, Yom Kippur, unheard of even a decade ago. Despite the long battles between the Church and the secularists, Italy does not have France’s militant revolutionary secular tradition and will never be a completely secular country, but it won’t be fundamentalist either.
The Department of International Relations at The American University of Rome will be marking the Concordats’ anniversaries with a seminar:
11 Feb. 18.30 - 20.00 B204 Seminar "Religious freedoms in Italy 75 years after the Lateran Pacts"
The relationship between Church and State in Italy has never been straightforward and seldom been easy. Before unification, the Pope was one of the many sovereigns reigning in Italy, a political actor as well as a spiritual one. The Lateran Pacts answered “the Roman Question” but created new questions. Seventy five years on and 20 years after the revision of the Concordat, the role of religion in Italy is being questioned once again as the country becomes multi-religious for the first time since the Roman empire. John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter will look at "Church/State Relations in an Increasingly Pluralistic Italy". Anna Foa Professor of Modern History at the University of Rome, Sapienza, “The Church and the religious freedom in Italy (1848-1929)”, Giulio Ercolessi, Fondazione Critica liberale “Secularism in Italy”
Please let us know if you do not want to receive the blog:
The blog’s address is http://italpolblog.blogspot.com/
International Relations email is internationalrelations@aur.edu
It’s not the BBC – the RAI, broadcasting and media law in Italy; the verifica.
This week was supposed to have seen the consolidation of the government coalition, the so-called verifica. There should have been discussions between the coalition leaders, decisions taken on issues to give priority to and - perhaps - a cabinet reshuffle. Instead, Mr. Berlusconi found that his allies were not as loyal as they ought to be and that they do not always follow the party line. So far, the process has dragged on for two weeks and little has been verified apart from the muddle.
The Gasparri media reform bill is a controversial piece of legislation that would protect one of the Prime Minister’s television channels and allow broadcasters to move into the print media and, arguably, allow a single operator to take a larger share of the total market. It has been strongly criticised as being blatantly in the interest of Mr. Berlusconi’s own media conglomerate Mediaset. For some of these reasons, President Ciampi refused to sign it last year and asked Parliament to reconsider the draft. This draft came very close to defeat on some crucial amendments, so instead of steaming through Parliament propelled by a huge majority, it was been ignominiously withdrawn to Committee to languish there probably till after the European Parliament elections in June.
There were exchanges between the otherwise usually amicable Umberto Bossi and Berlusconi. The first said the other was “cooked” and the Prime Minister replied that the opponents in the coalition would end up cooked by the Euro-elections. Not the most edifying or even witty exchange of political invective.
Whatever happens in this coming week, a process that should have given new impetus and energy to the government has ended up weakening it. The differences remain unresolved and there have been no clear winners or losers in terms of either jobs or programmes. Pressing issues like pensions, devolution and the new financial regulator will no doubt be given many words, but none of them definitive.
At the same time, the media, the issue most closely linked to Silvio Berlusconi, keeps on bubbling away.
It is revealing to compare Italy with the British experience of the last fortnight. The Hutton report gave the BBC a bloody nose but since then, there has been a very audible honing of weapons in the Corporation ready for the return match which will be the Butler report on intelligence gathering leading up to the war in Iraq. It is just possible that investigative reporting and criticism of government will be muted. On the other hand it seems more likely that by tightening their procedures, the BBC will enhance and strengthen its powers of criticism.
Here in Italy, in a 3 January report “Reporters sans frontières” reckoned that media pluralism was at risk in Italy as a result of Berlusconi’s control. Many others are worried; Guglielmo Epifani, the secretary general of the left-wing union CGIL, told an opposition conference on the media that the sector was “a patient with a 39 degree (102F) fever”.
There has been criticism of RAI’s techniques, especially the Channel 1 news; one of its senior editors resigned accusing the director of doctoring the news in the Government’s favour, omitting embarrassing material like Berlusconi’s famous “Kapò” speech at the European Parliament last July or “sandwiching” critical material between wads of pro-government padding, called a “sandwiche” or panino in RAI newsroomspeak. Paolo Serventi Longhi, the Secretary General of the Journalists’ Union, used the example that print media and most of the other televisions recently criticised economics minister Tremonti one evening, but nothing appeared on RAI 1.
And the opposition-leaning RAI President Lucia Annunziata accused Berlusconi of “calling the board members to murmur names and influence programme choice”. The government supporters on the Board hotly denied these accusations but the reputation of the RAI sank even lower. In contrast to Britain, the battle between Government and public service broadcasting in Italy is a bloody street fight, hand to hand, desk by desk, news item by news item.
Even the humorists have had a tough time; a cartoonist declared that it was impossible to make fun of what was already ridiculous, while a court accepted imitator Sabrina Guzzanti’s appeal against the suppression of her programme “RAIot, Armi di Distrazione di Massa”. The judge affirmed the right to satire, but then declared that all the offending sketches were not satire at all, they were true. Guzzanti impersonates Berlusconi (as well as Massimo D’Alema, Annunziata and a number of other public figures) better than they do themselves. She fills theatres, but was removed from the RAI in November. No wonder that despite judgement in her favour, we still do not have a broadcast date.
The other battlefront is in Parliament. Last week about 40 deputies voted against the Gasparri Bill. Almost unheard of elsewhere, in Italy Parliamentarians may vote secretly on occasions, so we do not know the names of the rebels. Some of these votes were National Alliance and others were from the centrist UDC; last year they had voted compactly in favour but with a secret division, many of them used it to fire a shot across the Prime Minister’s bows. The rebellion was a warning to Mr. Berlusconi that he will not have everything his own way for the rest of the legislature.
Please let us know if you do not want to receive the blog.
The blog’s address is http://italpolblog.blogspot.com/
International Relations email is internationalrelations@aur.edu
This week was supposed to have seen the consolidation of the government coalition, the so-called verifica. There should have been discussions between the coalition leaders, decisions taken on issues to give priority to and - perhaps - a cabinet reshuffle. Instead, Mr. Berlusconi found that his allies were not as loyal as they ought to be and that they do not always follow the party line. So far, the process has dragged on for two weeks and little has been verified apart from the muddle.
The Gasparri media reform bill is a controversial piece of legislation that would protect one of the Prime Minister’s television channels and allow broadcasters to move into the print media and, arguably, allow a single operator to take a larger share of the total market. It has been strongly criticised as being blatantly in the interest of Mr. Berlusconi’s own media conglomerate Mediaset. For some of these reasons, President Ciampi refused to sign it last year and asked Parliament to reconsider the draft. This draft came very close to defeat on some crucial amendments, so instead of steaming through Parliament propelled by a huge majority, it was been ignominiously withdrawn to Committee to languish there probably till after the European Parliament elections in June.
There were exchanges between the otherwise usually amicable Umberto Bossi and Berlusconi. The first said the other was “cooked” and the Prime Minister replied that the opponents in the coalition would end up cooked by the Euro-elections. Not the most edifying or even witty exchange of political invective.
Whatever happens in this coming week, a process that should have given new impetus and energy to the government has ended up weakening it. The differences remain unresolved and there have been no clear winners or losers in terms of either jobs or programmes. Pressing issues like pensions, devolution and the new financial regulator will no doubt be given many words, but none of them definitive.
At the same time, the media, the issue most closely linked to Silvio Berlusconi, keeps on bubbling away.
It is revealing to compare Italy with the British experience of the last fortnight. The Hutton report gave the BBC a bloody nose but since then, there has been a very audible honing of weapons in the Corporation ready for the return match which will be the Butler report on intelligence gathering leading up to the war in Iraq. It is just possible that investigative reporting and criticism of government will be muted. On the other hand it seems more likely that by tightening their procedures, the BBC will enhance and strengthen its powers of criticism.
Here in Italy, in a 3 January report “Reporters sans frontières” reckoned that media pluralism was at risk in Italy as a result of Berlusconi’s control. Many others are worried; Guglielmo Epifani, the secretary general of the left-wing union CGIL, told an opposition conference on the media that the sector was “a patient with a 39 degree (102F) fever”.
There has been criticism of RAI’s techniques, especially the Channel 1 news; one of its senior editors resigned accusing the director of doctoring the news in the Government’s favour, omitting embarrassing material like Berlusconi’s famous “Kapò” speech at the European Parliament last July or “sandwiching” critical material between wads of pro-government padding, called a “sandwiche” or panino in RAI newsroomspeak. Paolo Serventi Longhi, the Secretary General of the Journalists’ Union, used the example that print media and most of the other televisions recently criticised economics minister Tremonti one evening, but nothing appeared on RAI 1.
And the opposition-leaning RAI President Lucia Annunziata accused Berlusconi of “calling the board members to murmur names and influence programme choice”. The government supporters on the Board hotly denied these accusations but the reputation of the RAI sank even lower. In contrast to Britain, the battle between Government and public service broadcasting in Italy is a bloody street fight, hand to hand, desk by desk, news item by news item.
Even the humorists have had a tough time; a cartoonist declared that it was impossible to make fun of what was already ridiculous, while a court accepted imitator Sabrina Guzzanti’s appeal against the suppression of her programme “RAIot, Armi di Distrazione di Massa”. The judge affirmed the right to satire, but then declared that all the offending sketches were not satire at all, they were true. Guzzanti impersonates Berlusconi (as well as Massimo D’Alema, Annunziata and a number of other public figures) better than they do themselves. She fills theatres, but was removed from the RAI in November. No wonder that despite judgement in her favour, we still do not have a broadcast date.
The other battlefront is in Parliament. Last week about 40 deputies voted against the Gasparri Bill. Almost unheard of elsewhere, in Italy Parliamentarians may vote secretly on occasions, so we do not know the names of the rebels. Some of these votes were National Alliance and others were from the centrist UDC; last year they had voted compactly in favour but with a secret division, many of them used it to fire a shot across the Prime Minister’s bows. The rebellion was a warning to Mr. Berlusconi that he will not have everything his own way for the rest of the legislature.
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Sunday, January 25, 2004
Berlusconi’s first ten years in politics
Silvio Berlusconi actually “came onto the field” on 26 January 1994, but always the early bird, he celebrated the anniversary yesterday at an extravagant ceremony at the Palacongresso in EUR here in Rome. The 105 minute speech was remarkably consistent with his opening message a decade ago.
In 1994, he was going to save Italy from Communism. “Then” he declared to rapturous applause from the six thousand supporters, “it was called by its real name and went under the symbol of the hammer and sickel. Today, the Communists and the left have tried to disguise themselves. They’ve had a facelift, but it didn’t work”, proudly vaunting his own successful cosmetic surgery. No false modesty here; he had “saved Italy” and would do it again if necessary, to end what he called “a permanent civil war”.
Not surprisingly, Berlusconi launched his second salvo at the magistrates he calls “Jacobins”, the Milan prosecutors who dealt with the kickback system known as Tangentopoli and then indicted Berlusconi himself along with many of his business associates and employees.
He quoted the ex-Socialist Genoese priest, Gianni Baget Bozzo at length “Fascism was less odious than the begowned bureaucracy which used violence in the name of justice” (Italian magistrates wear gowns in court). “If there was any freedom,” he went on reading Baget Bozzo’s article, “the names of the Milan magistrates, the Di Pietros, the Borrellis, the Davigos, the Bocassinis would be remembered with horror.”
This is strong stuff and he has attacked the magistrature many times before; still, each time, it comes as a shock. To hear an Italian Prime Minister saying that members of one of the institutions of a democratic state are worse than fascism is or should be unusual, especially as it is Mr. Berlusconi himself who resembles Robespierre with all his certainties. There is also something surreal and maniacally illusory to hear him attacking a non-existent political force… and even more peculiar that he has an audience that believes it and laps it up.
For his followers, his charm, part messianic and part variety show compère, is still obviously strong. He still knows how to play the populist chords and work his audience.
He has less of a shine for his allies. He also used the speech to try throw out lines to them to try and bring them in closer ready for the cabinet reshuffle and programme adjustment due this week or next. Rocco Buttiglione criticised the anti-magistrate remarks and Umberto Bossi once again huffed and puffed over the lack of progress towards greater devolution. Fini made no comment.
In practice, yesterday’s event was the beginning of the European Parliament election campaign, five months before the elections. Mr. Berlusconi knows that his strength is as an electioneering politician. Not only does he obviously have the resources – money and media – he is actually very good at it. The operation of “coming onto the field” 10 years ago was a brilliant success. To invent a party in six months and then pull it out of a hat two months before elections, and then win, was unique. Even more so, when he put together the improbable alliance between the Northern League, National Alliance and his new party.
After the inevitable rupture with Bossi and the League seven months later, Berlusconi showed a different quality, persistence in the face of adversity. From having been a “company party”, a “nimble party”, Forza Italia became something approaching a traditional party but despite the growing organisational structures, it remained and remains dependent on the founder. Yesterday’s performance was proof if any were necessary.
It showed once again how 10 years ago Italian politics veered off any other track, not just European. Wealth, control of the media and political power combined in one person are not part of any democratic norm but Berlusconi managed to do it as well as sustaining criminal prosecutions that would have been impossible elsewhere.
But Berlusconi’s decade in politics is not just due to his own ability however great that might be; without the support of parts of the centre-left, in particular Massimo D’Alema who accepted him as his interlocutor for the Bicameral Commission’s proposed constitutional reforms instead of clearing up the conflicts of interest or even applying existing laws. In 1998, Romano Prodi was defeated in Parliament, again with the connivance of part of the left which wanted to see D’Alema as Prime Minister. Those divisions remained till the elections and almost certainly allowed Berlusconi to win in 2001.
If they continue, then tomorrow will mark just the first decade of Silvio Berlusconi political career.
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Silvio Berlusconi actually “came onto the field” on 26 January 1994, but always the early bird, he celebrated the anniversary yesterday at an extravagant ceremony at the Palacongresso in EUR here in Rome. The 105 minute speech was remarkably consistent with his opening message a decade ago.
In 1994, he was going to save Italy from Communism. “Then” he declared to rapturous applause from the six thousand supporters, “it was called by its real name and went under the symbol of the hammer and sickel. Today, the Communists and the left have tried to disguise themselves. They’ve had a facelift, but it didn’t work”, proudly vaunting his own successful cosmetic surgery. No false modesty here; he had “saved Italy” and would do it again if necessary, to end what he called “a permanent civil war”.
Not surprisingly, Berlusconi launched his second salvo at the magistrates he calls “Jacobins”, the Milan prosecutors who dealt with the kickback system known as Tangentopoli and then indicted Berlusconi himself along with many of his business associates and employees.
He quoted the ex-Socialist Genoese priest, Gianni Baget Bozzo at length “Fascism was less odious than the begowned bureaucracy which used violence in the name of justice” (Italian magistrates wear gowns in court). “If there was any freedom,” he went on reading Baget Bozzo’s article, “the names of the Milan magistrates, the Di Pietros, the Borrellis, the Davigos, the Bocassinis would be remembered with horror.”
This is strong stuff and he has attacked the magistrature many times before; still, each time, it comes as a shock. To hear an Italian Prime Minister saying that members of one of the institutions of a democratic state are worse than fascism is or should be unusual, especially as it is Mr. Berlusconi himself who resembles Robespierre with all his certainties. There is also something surreal and maniacally illusory to hear him attacking a non-existent political force… and even more peculiar that he has an audience that believes it and laps it up.
For his followers, his charm, part messianic and part variety show compère, is still obviously strong. He still knows how to play the populist chords and work his audience.
He has less of a shine for his allies. He also used the speech to try throw out lines to them to try and bring them in closer ready for the cabinet reshuffle and programme adjustment due this week or next. Rocco Buttiglione criticised the anti-magistrate remarks and Umberto Bossi once again huffed and puffed over the lack of progress towards greater devolution. Fini made no comment.
In practice, yesterday’s event was the beginning of the European Parliament election campaign, five months before the elections. Mr. Berlusconi knows that his strength is as an electioneering politician. Not only does he obviously have the resources – money and media – he is actually very good at it. The operation of “coming onto the field” 10 years ago was a brilliant success. To invent a party in six months and then pull it out of a hat two months before elections, and then win, was unique. Even more so, when he put together the improbable alliance between the Northern League, National Alliance and his new party.
After the inevitable rupture with Bossi and the League seven months later, Berlusconi showed a different quality, persistence in the face of adversity. From having been a “company party”, a “nimble party”, Forza Italia became something approaching a traditional party but despite the growing organisational structures, it remained and remains dependent on the founder. Yesterday’s performance was proof if any were necessary.
It showed once again how 10 years ago Italian politics veered off any other track, not just European. Wealth, control of the media and political power combined in one person are not part of any democratic norm but Berlusconi managed to do it as well as sustaining criminal prosecutions that would have been impossible elsewhere.
But Berlusconi’s decade in politics is not just due to his own ability however great that might be; without the support of parts of the centre-left, in particular Massimo D’Alema who accepted him as his interlocutor for the Bicameral Commission’s proposed constitutional reforms instead of clearing up the conflicts of interest or even applying existing laws. In 1998, Romano Prodi was defeated in Parliament, again with the connivance of part of the left which wanted to see D’Alema as Prime Minister. Those divisions remained till the elections and almost certainly allowed Berlusconi to win in 2001.
If they continue, then tomorrow will mark just the first decade of Silvio Berlusconi political career.
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Friday, January 23, 2004
A comment on "Zitto italiano…" from a diplomat who worked for a long time in Italy and knows the country well:
while I agree with a lot of what you say about Parmalat, I'm surprised you take the Bank of Italy's side on financial regulation. For too many years, and especially under Fazio (who with the euro has less to do elsewhere, and a huge staff), the Bank has promoted cosy cartels in the Italian banking industry and not acted as an effective supervisor of the financial industry. I'd be very happy for Consob to take over.
while I agree with a lot of what you say about Parmalat, I'm surprised you take the Bank of Italy's side on financial regulation. For too many years, and especially under Fazio (who with the euro has less to do elsewhere, and a huge staff), the Bank has promoted cosy cartels in the Italian banking industry and not acted as an effective supervisor of the financial industry. I'd be very happy for Consob to take over.
Friday, January 09, 2004
Zitto italiano se no, pompare tutta la notte
or
Things are seldom what they seem, skim milk masquerades as cream. W. S. Gilbert
There is an old Venetian story about a sailor who takes ship on a leaky Greek schooner. That night, he wakes to find the water pouring in through a gash in the hull. Alarmed, he shakes the Greek sailor in the bunk next to him “zitto italiano” mutters his companion, “se no, pompare tutta la notte” (shut up Italian, otherwise we’ll be pumping all night). ” And he turns over and goes back to sleep.
As far as Parmalat is concerned, the ship has actually sunk and there must be bankers and regulators of many national hues who acted just like that Greek sailor. One American banker who on the contrary must be feeling pretty smug today, asked Parmalat three questions five years ago. What is the corporate structure of the company? Why do you want to borrow $7bn when you have $5bn in the bank? And finally, why does a milk and yogurt business need so many offshore subsidiaries? He received no satisfactory answers and to the chagrin of his superiors refused to OK a loan and his bank does not appear in the top ten losers. A Bologna relation of the young man, also a banker declared bluntly that he would “rather give a dollar to a beggar than lend one to Calisto Tanzi”, Parmalat’s founder.
These stories were told me off the record; on the record Mr. Tanzi threatened to sue any bank that even suggested Parmalat’s finances might be shaky. In March last year, he made a formal complaint to the Milan Stock Exchange and the Consob, the regulatory body. For the rest of last year, investigations moved slowly forward but as the world now knows, by then, it was not a question of pumping, the ship was already full of water; it just had not sunk yet.
The immediate financial consequences are huge losses for big banks and small investors. The Milan prosecutors have opened a link (Procura della Repubblica di Milano) inviting reports by anyone who feels they have been cheated or lost out over the Parmalat collapse. There will be a raft of civil litigation as well as the criminal cases in all of the countries where Parmalat either operated or where it borrowed money. The globalisation of the fraud is another reason why comparisons with Enron are weak (the other as the FT pointed (29 December), is that Parmalat is missing about €10 bn “This is about 0.8 per cent of Italy's gross domestic product. In terms of relative GDP, the Enron case in the US is peanuts by comparison”.
But there is one connection with Enron; one of the consequences of that case was the Sarbanes-Oxley Act which makes no distinction between American and foreign companies. Banks and accountants who have had dealings with Parmalat could well be liable under the act’s anti-fraud provisions.
The Italo-American divide is visible in the long term consequences too. In the US, when there is a crisis, visible action is taken immediately. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. In Italy, partly through the mechanics of coalition government, partly through the intangibles of national culture, there is much talk and little concrete action. These differences will clash over how to deal with Parmalat.
Credibility and confidence in Italian business and business practice has taken a terrible bashing this last year. For very different reasons, two other giants of the Italian corporate world got into trouble, Fiat and Cirio. The fact that this government reduced penalties on false accounting and the Prime Minister’s own companies and employees have been convicted of bribing tax inspectors clearly does not inspire confidence in Italian capitalism either. As Marco Vitale (ex-member of the Consob) hoped for in a series of articles in Corriere della Sera 31 December, 2 and 6 January), now is the time for major reforms.
He knows, though, that they are not going to happen; at least not on the same time span as Sarbanes-Oxley.
The Parmalat fiasco has engendered a turf war between part of the Government and the Bank of Italy. Economics Minister Giulio Tremonti wants to set up a new regulatory authority taking power from the Bank and Consob promising that it would be operative by March Super-authority operativa entro marzo. He is supported by the Prime Minister and his usual ally, Mr. Bossi, but other coalition members are lukewarm and the issue is adding serious strains to the alliance, not critical yet, but they could develop. The opposition is strongly against the proposal “The independence and autonomy of the Bank of Italy are for us a constitutional value” said the DS’s leader Piero Fassino. And indeed in the whole post-war period, the Bank of Italy was one of the few institutions not part of the political spoils sharing.
If put into effect, whatever real or possible efficiency it might have, the new body would be a further concentration of power under the executive’s control.
Finally, a month after the first explosions, there have been almost no suggestions of political involvement but it is difficult to believe that no politician or party had dealings with Mr. Tanzi. The sparring has begun but the real battles are to come.
This is a business story which is going way beyond the dairies of Emilia.
Next week: “Media pluralism? Or how to make money and win elections too” The Gasparri Media Bill back in Parliament and programming control in RAI.
Please let us know if you do not want to receive the blog and let us know of others who do want to receive it:
The blog’s address for back numbers is:
http://italpolblog.blogspot.com/
email: International Relations internationalrelations@aur.edu
or
Things are seldom what they seem, skim milk masquerades as cream. W. S. Gilbert
There is an old Venetian story about a sailor who takes ship on a leaky Greek schooner. That night, he wakes to find the water pouring in through a gash in the hull. Alarmed, he shakes the Greek sailor in the bunk next to him “zitto italiano” mutters his companion, “se no, pompare tutta la notte” (shut up Italian, otherwise we’ll be pumping all night). ” And he turns over and goes back to sleep.
As far as Parmalat is concerned, the ship has actually sunk and there must be bankers and regulators of many national hues who acted just like that Greek sailor. One American banker who on the contrary must be feeling pretty smug today, asked Parmalat three questions five years ago. What is the corporate structure of the company? Why do you want to borrow $7bn when you have $5bn in the bank? And finally, why does a milk and yogurt business need so many offshore subsidiaries? He received no satisfactory answers and to the chagrin of his superiors refused to OK a loan and his bank does not appear in the top ten losers. A Bologna relation of the young man, also a banker declared bluntly that he would “rather give a dollar to a beggar than lend one to Calisto Tanzi”, Parmalat’s founder.
These stories were told me off the record; on the record Mr. Tanzi threatened to sue any bank that even suggested Parmalat’s finances might be shaky. In March last year, he made a formal complaint to the Milan Stock Exchange and the Consob, the regulatory body. For the rest of last year, investigations moved slowly forward but as the world now knows, by then, it was not a question of pumping, the ship was already full of water; it just had not sunk yet.
The immediate financial consequences are huge losses for big banks and small investors. The Milan prosecutors have opened a link (Procura della Repubblica di Milano) inviting reports by anyone who feels they have been cheated or lost out over the Parmalat collapse. There will be a raft of civil litigation as well as the criminal cases in all of the countries where Parmalat either operated or where it borrowed money. The globalisation of the fraud is another reason why comparisons with Enron are weak (the other as the FT pointed (29 December), is that Parmalat is missing about €10 bn “This is about 0.8 per cent of Italy's gross domestic product. In terms of relative GDP, the Enron case in the US is peanuts by comparison”.
But there is one connection with Enron; one of the consequences of that case was the Sarbanes-Oxley Act which makes no distinction between American and foreign companies. Banks and accountants who have had dealings with Parmalat could well be liable under the act’s anti-fraud provisions.
The Italo-American divide is visible in the long term consequences too. In the US, when there is a crisis, visible action is taken immediately. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. In Italy, partly through the mechanics of coalition government, partly through the intangibles of national culture, there is much talk and little concrete action. These differences will clash over how to deal with Parmalat.
Credibility and confidence in Italian business and business practice has taken a terrible bashing this last year. For very different reasons, two other giants of the Italian corporate world got into trouble, Fiat and Cirio. The fact that this government reduced penalties on false accounting and the Prime Minister’s own companies and employees have been convicted of bribing tax inspectors clearly does not inspire confidence in Italian capitalism either. As Marco Vitale (ex-member of the Consob) hoped for in a series of articles in Corriere della Sera 31 December, 2 and 6 January), now is the time for major reforms.
He knows, though, that they are not going to happen; at least not on the same time span as Sarbanes-Oxley.
The Parmalat fiasco has engendered a turf war between part of the Government and the Bank of Italy. Economics Minister Giulio Tremonti wants to set up a new regulatory authority taking power from the Bank and Consob promising that it would be operative by March Super-authority operativa entro marzo. He is supported by the Prime Minister and his usual ally, Mr. Bossi, but other coalition members are lukewarm and the issue is adding serious strains to the alliance, not critical yet, but they could develop. The opposition is strongly against the proposal “The independence and autonomy of the Bank of Italy are for us a constitutional value” said the DS’s leader Piero Fassino. And indeed in the whole post-war period, the Bank of Italy was one of the few institutions not part of the political spoils sharing.
If put into effect, whatever real or possible efficiency it might have, the new body would be a further concentration of power under the executive’s control.
Finally, a month after the first explosions, there have been almost no suggestions of political involvement but it is difficult to believe that no politician or party had dealings with Mr. Tanzi. The sparring has begun but the real battles are to come.
This is a business story which is going way beyond the dairies of Emilia.
Next week: “Media pluralism? Or how to make money and win elections too” The Gasparri Media Bill back in Parliament and programming control in RAI.
Please let us know if you do not want to receive the blog and let us know of others who do want to receive it:
The blog’s address for back numbers is:
http://italpolblog.blogspot.com/
email: International Relations internationalrelations@aur.edu
Friday, January 02, 2004
Looking back, looking forward.
Italian Politics in the new and old years
Iraq, Berlusconi’s legal trials and perhaps tribulations, the European Parliamentary elections and Prodi’s return.
Certainly, no one can complain that Italian politics were boring last year.
There was the war, of course, which produced some nifty acrobatics and some unlikely alliances. In the build-up the Prime Minister had veered from supporting the American interventionist policy after seeing Mr. Bush at his ranch in Texas to supporting diplomacy after conversations with Mr. Putin.
As the invasion drew closer, Mr. Berlusconi took a free ride, using the Constitution as a shield to avoid committing Italian forces at the same time as giving verbal support to Messrs. Bush and Blair. Unlike his friend José Maria Aznar, he did not even have to decide on which way to vote in the UN Security Council as Italy was not a member. Obviously the Prime Minister did not spell out Italy’s refusal to commit troops; the Constitution is not wholly pacifist and does allow Italy to take part in legally sanctioned wars as happened in the 1991 Gulf War. The implication this time was that Government lawyers reckoned there was insufficient legal foundation for going to war. Far from condemning the Prime Minister for being two-faced, many Italians, not only Government supporters, reckoned that he was being an able and furbo player.
In any case, there was certainly insufficient political support; coalition allies were lukewarm and most of the country was strongly against the war. The result was the improbable linking of arms between nuns and no-globals, former anti-clericals and cardinals plus a good sprinkling of secular and moderates of all colours, much like in the rest of Europe and some of the US.
As it turned out, Italian intervention in the post-war occupation was far more bloody than anyone had dared predict. Nineteen carabinieri, soldiers and civilians died in a suicide bomb attack in Nasiriya in November. It was also a surprise to see how the Italian tricolour appeared at windows almost as much as the rainbow peace flag had in the previous months. Often the two flags flew from the same balcony. Previously non-nationalistic Italians discovered the patria. It was a moment high on emotion and patriotism but low on debate as to what the forces are doing in Iraq.
Obviously, Iraq is not a problem which is going to go away; the debate will, or may, begin when the mandate to keep the troops deployed comes up for renewal or if there are more deaths. A year ago, Iraq looked like a political minefield for Berlusconi but despite the real bomb in Nasiriya, he has managed to avoid any political responsibility.
Not so with the EU Presidency; there the furbizia brought few prizes and to tell you the truth, apart from the final Intergovernmental Conference in Brussels last month, the problem was not slyness. On the contrary, once again Mr. Berlusconi showed how seriously he is affected by foot-in-mouth disease. His outburst at the very beginning when he called the German MEP Martin Schulz a kapò has been replayed endlessly since then by delighted tv editors (apart from in Italy, of course). Deputy prime minister Gianfranco Fini was sitting next him at the time and his expression of despairing embarassment says more than any words.
His diplomacy was personal as ever, disturbing enough for a democracy like Italy, relatively powerful in its own right but downright improper for the EU. Once again, he defended his friend Valdimir, suggesting that Russian action in Chechnya was the right policy. Turkey too where Berlusconi was the honoured guest at the Prime Minister’s daughter’s wedding, was given unconditioned commitment. Ditto Isreal’s decision to build the fence. Pity that the EU’s position (and even the US’s for the fence) is highly critical on all these issues.
In the final IGC, Berlusconi promised he would pull a compromise out of the hat at the last minute and save the EU’s draft Constitution. But as a British MEP told the BBC “All Silvio Berlusconi had up his sleeve was a gelato-stained napkin with a few bad jokes scribbled on it”. Chris Patten was even more damning in his reasonableness “A fiasco but not a disaster”. Another anonymous participant said it was the worst-prepared summit that anyone could remember as Mr. B. put on on his “cheeky chappie” air and suggested that they should talk about lighter topics, such as "football and women” (BBC NEWS | Europe | Italy's chaos-prone EU pr... ).
The Italian Presidency is over but the tussles with the EU are bound to continue for all of 2004. Some will be over matters of substance, from milk subsidies to how much support the government can give ailing Italian companies. The more headline-grabbing fights will be between Berlusconi and Romano Prodi as Spring’s European Parliamentary elections approach.
Prodi himself is playing Sisyphus once again as he tries to bring the sniping elements of the Olive Tree Alliance into shape ready for this years Euro elections and Italian elections in 2006 or before when he would like to see himself Prime Minister once again.
The present incumbent told his end of year (two hour, live on prime time) press conference that he was the most popular head of government in Europe and that he would be around in government after the next elections and in politics for another 10 to 15 years.
He’s probably not wrong… unless.
There are a few unlesses but none seem imminent.
There are the rumours about his health but for the moment they are just that, rumours.
Sometime soon in the new year the Constitutional Court will give its verdict on the Immunity Law passed in June to prevent Berlusconi’s trial for bribing a judge from proceeding while he is Prime Minister. If they hold that the law is unconstitutional, then the trial will start again and would certainly reach a verdict within the year. But he has already said that he would not resign even if found guilty. It is after all the trial at first instance and the appeal would take years.
After all that has happened in the Berlusconi era, to have a Prime Minister found guilty of bribery might not even surprise us.
He will have to deal with the Gasparri media bill, turned down by President Ciampi last month. It would have saved his Rete 4 channel (instead a stop-gap decree was passed just before Christmas allowing Rete 4 to continue broadcasting terrestrially for another months) and given him the possibility of expanding his media holdings into print. The alternatives are either a climbdown or a clash with the President, neither very attractive options.
Finally there is the economy; in general, slumbering, with crises like the Parmalat scandal exploding with alarming frequency. This is the real risk for Mr. Berlusconi. Local and EU elections will give us an idea or how serious that risk is but either way, he will not step down.
With all this and a fair chance of Papal conclave, it does not look as if 2004 is going to be boring either.
Next week: “Crying over split milk” and other Parmalat puns.
Please let us know if you do not want to receive the blog:
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http://italpolblog.blogspot.com/
email: International Relations internationalrelations@aur.edu
Italian Politics in the new and old years
Iraq, Berlusconi’s legal trials and perhaps tribulations, the European Parliamentary elections and Prodi’s return.
Certainly, no one can complain that Italian politics were boring last year.
There was the war, of course, which produced some nifty acrobatics and some unlikely alliances. In the build-up the Prime Minister had veered from supporting the American interventionist policy after seeing Mr. Bush at his ranch in Texas to supporting diplomacy after conversations with Mr. Putin.
As the invasion drew closer, Mr. Berlusconi took a free ride, using the Constitution as a shield to avoid committing Italian forces at the same time as giving verbal support to Messrs. Bush and Blair. Unlike his friend José Maria Aznar, he did not even have to decide on which way to vote in the UN Security Council as Italy was not a member. Obviously the Prime Minister did not spell out Italy’s refusal to commit troops; the Constitution is not wholly pacifist and does allow Italy to take part in legally sanctioned wars as happened in the 1991 Gulf War. The implication this time was that Government lawyers reckoned there was insufficient legal foundation for going to war. Far from condemning the Prime Minister for being two-faced, many Italians, not only Government supporters, reckoned that he was being an able and furbo player.
In any case, there was certainly insufficient political support; coalition allies were lukewarm and most of the country was strongly against the war. The result was the improbable linking of arms between nuns and no-globals, former anti-clericals and cardinals plus a good sprinkling of secular and moderates of all colours, much like in the rest of Europe and some of the US.
As it turned out, Italian intervention in the post-war occupation was far more bloody than anyone had dared predict. Nineteen carabinieri, soldiers and civilians died in a suicide bomb attack in Nasiriya in November. It was also a surprise to see how the Italian tricolour appeared at windows almost as much as the rainbow peace flag had in the previous months. Often the two flags flew from the same balcony. Previously non-nationalistic Italians discovered the patria. It was a moment high on emotion and patriotism but low on debate as to what the forces are doing in Iraq.
Obviously, Iraq is not a problem which is going to go away; the debate will, or may, begin when the mandate to keep the troops deployed comes up for renewal or if there are more deaths. A year ago, Iraq looked like a political minefield for Berlusconi but despite the real bomb in Nasiriya, he has managed to avoid any political responsibility.
Not so with the EU Presidency; there the furbizia brought few prizes and to tell you the truth, apart from the final Intergovernmental Conference in Brussels last month, the problem was not slyness. On the contrary, once again Mr. Berlusconi showed how seriously he is affected by foot-in-mouth disease. His outburst at the very beginning when he called the German MEP Martin Schulz a kapò has been replayed endlessly since then by delighted tv editors (apart from in Italy, of course). Deputy prime minister Gianfranco Fini was sitting next him at the time and his expression of despairing embarassment says more than any words.
His diplomacy was personal as ever, disturbing enough for a democracy like Italy, relatively powerful in its own right but downright improper for the EU. Once again, he defended his friend Valdimir, suggesting that Russian action in Chechnya was the right policy. Turkey too where Berlusconi was the honoured guest at the Prime Minister’s daughter’s wedding, was given unconditioned commitment. Ditto Isreal’s decision to build the fence. Pity that the EU’s position (and even the US’s for the fence) is highly critical on all these issues.
In the final IGC, Berlusconi promised he would pull a compromise out of the hat at the last minute and save the EU’s draft Constitution. But as a British MEP told the BBC “All Silvio Berlusconi had up his sleeve was a gelato-stained napkin with a few bad jokes scribbled on it”. Chris Patten was even more damning in his reasonableness “A fiasco but not a disaster”. Another anonymous participant said it was the worst-prepared summit that anyone could remember as Mr. B. put on on his “cheeky chappie” air and suggested that they should talk about lighter topics, such as "football and women” (BBC NEWS | Europe | Italy's chaos-prone EU pr... ).
The Italian Presidency is over but the tussles with the EU are bound to continue for all of 2004. Some will be over matters of substance, from milk subsidies to how much support the government can give ailing Italian companies. The more headline-grabbing fights will be between Berlusconi and Romano Prodi as Spring’s European Parliamentary elections approach.
Prodi himself is playing Sisyphus once again as he tries to bring the sniping elements of the Olive Tree Alliance into shape ready for this years Euro elections and Italian elections in 2006 or before when he would like to see himself Prime Minister once again.
The present incumbent told his end of year (two hour, live on prime time) press conference that he was the most popular head of government in Europe and that he would be around in government after the next elections and in politics for another 10 to 15 years.
He’s probably not wrong… unless.
There are a few unlesses but none seem imminent.
There are the rumours about his health but for the moment they are just that, rumours.
Sometime soon in the new year the Constitutional Court will give its verdict on the Immunity Law passed in June to prevent Berlusconi’s trial for bribing a judge from proceeding while he is Prime Minister. If they hold that the law is unconstitutional, then the trial will start again and would certainly reach a verdict within the year. But he has already said that he would not resign even if found guilty. It is after all the trial at first instance and the appeal would take years.
After all that has happened in the Berlusconi era, to have a Prime Minister found guilty of bribery might not even surprise us.
He will have to deal with the Gasparri media bill, turned down by President Ciampi last month. It would have saved his Rete 4 channel (instead a stop-gap decree was passed just before Christmas allowing Rete 4 to continue broadcasting terrestrially for another months) and given him the possibility of expanding his media holdings into print. The alternatives are either a climbdown or a clash with the President, neither very attractive options.
Finally there is the economy; in general, slumbering, with crises like the Parmalat scandal exploding with alarming frequency. This is the real risk for Mr. Berlusconi. Local and EU elections will give us an idea or how serious that risk is but either way, he will not step down.
With all this and a fair chance of Papal conclave, it does not look as if 2004 is going to be boring either.
Next week: “Crying over split milk” and other Parmalat puns.
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