Articles by: Judith Harris

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    Elections, Expulsions and the Polls


    ROME - The proposal for a revision of the election process finally made it into the Chamber of Deputies this week, as neo-Premier Matteo Renzi had promised, but it does not quite resemble the deal expected after he and former Premier Silvio Berlusconi had a widely publicized (and widely criticized) meeting to hash it out. Here are the provisions under debate until at least next week, when the new law, nicknamed the "Italicum," is expected to be put before the assembly for a vote. Its clauses are important, but don't make particularly easy reading:


    --For a single party to be represented in Parliament it must receive a minimum 8% of the vote. If instead it is part of a coalition, the party can have as little as 4.5%; below that, nothing. Finally, in order for a coalition to be represented, its votes must total at least 12%. (Phew.)

    --A candidate can run in--guess what--as many as eight different electoral colleges. (No comment on this one.)

    --The coalition which wins more than 37% of the vote wins the jackpot of 55% of the members of Parliament. (This is considered an important forward step because in the past two elections the premium could be won with as low as 30% of the vote.)

    --If no coalition wins that coveted 37%, the two leading coalitions have a run-off, and the victor has 55% of the MPs. (The reasoning behind these last two clauses is called governability.)


    Political observers here say that the original deal hammered out by Renzi and Berlusconi has been skillfully watered down by none other than Renzi's partner in government, Angelino Alfano, who heads of New Center-Right (Nuovo Centro Destra, NCD). "Half their deal is gone," said Ugo Magri of the Turin daily La Stampa. In addition, Alfano is expected to challenge the 4.5% minimum required for Parliament so as to allow the numerous still smaller parties to be represented. The Italicum is therefore not yet a shoo-in.


    The biggest and most criticized issue is the future of the Senate. Renzi has repeatedly announced that it will simply be abolished. This presupposes a constitutional change, however, a slow process which does not fit into Renzi's Speedy Gonzales image (as some here have dubbed him). Those who want the Senate simply to disappear maintain that it is too close a replica of the Chamber--a virtual clone--and that the requirement for its cooperation in passing legislation is a handicap since bills drift back and forth repeatedly from the lower to the upper house, creating stagnation.


    But people here area also asking what kind of an election law it will be that simply ignores the Senate altogether. In addition, when and why should the Senate vote itself out of existence, and will President Giorgio Napolitano go along with this?


    Speaking of the Senate, Beppe Grillo remains on the warpath and this week chucked out five more senators from his Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S) for rebellious behavior. Out of the original 54 M5S seated in the Senate, 13 are now gone; eleven who were actually expelled because considered disobedient to party discipline, and two who resigned in protest against what they consider purges. More expulsions are reportedly in the wings, and will, like this weeks expelled senators, be voted by the M5S on-line membership. At just the same time, ironically, Grillo's grizzled brain-truster and internet guru Gianroberto Casaleggio was meeting in Milan to woo a handful of business leaders.


    It is not surprising that the rightist Il Giornale headline gloated, "The Grillini are rebelling. One elector of three does not appreciate the purges." According to a new poll conducted by Ixe', support for Grillo's party, which more or less led the pack until recently with around 30% of popular backing, has now slumped to 21%. The same Ixe' polls suggest that Renzi's Partito Democratico (PD) has moved forward, if only slightly, to a 30% approval rating. Berlusoni's revived Forza Italia has crept up to 22.8%, a fairly good showing because its split with the Alfano group is so recent. Altogether the center-left and center-right coalitions appear neck-to-neck. If the polls can be trusted, the center-left would probably total 36.5%, and the center-right, 36.1%--too close to be called, to close to allow guessing as to who would win that coveted 55%.


    A footnote: Renzi and his predecessor, Enrico Letta, are no longer on speaking terms, with Renzi claiming that Letta's government under-stated the depths of the financial problems facing Italy, chastized by the European Union.
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    Detour, There's a Muddy Road Ahead



    ROME - Back in 1945 the Pecos River Boys sang this Western swing ballad written by Paul Westmoreland:
    Detour, there's a muddy road ahead,
    Detour, paid no mind to what it said,
    Detour, oh these bitter things I find,
    Should have read that detour sign.
     
    The good news is that on Thursday the Chamber of Deputies formally voted, 309 in favor, 99 abstentions and not a single "nay", for a revision of the Italian tax system to make it more transparent, equitable and growth oriented. The bill, to be enacted within one year, includes a provision for time payments of tax debts. Interestingly, Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan supported a second motion, presented by Beppe Grillo's Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S), that calls for an "absolute prohibition for publicity for all games with money prizes, including those on line." 
     
    However, no one will be surprised if the neo-Premier Matteo Renzi runs into a muddy road or two on his way to reviving the Italian government and the country's spirits. While wishing him well, a few traces of mud are already visible. Perhaps he could have paid attention to the detour signs warning of possible problems involving especially two key cabinet posts: the Finance and Culture Ministries.
     
    Those in the know predict trouble ahead between Renzi and his so-called "technical" Minister  Padoan, 64. Along with Undersecretary Graziano Delrio, Padoan is the single most important man in the government after Renzi himself. Padoan, who taught economics most recently at Rome's La Sapienza University, comes into government with a distinguished record of international service. He was former chief economist and deputy director of the OECD; executive director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for Italy; a World Bank consultant; and recent nominee to head the official statistics-gathering agency ISTAT. He has also been a director of the Italianieuropei Foundation, a think tank created in 1998 by, among others, the former premiers Giuliano Amato and Massimo D'Alema  of the Partito Democratico (PD).  He is considered a Keynsian, more interested in growth than in austerity measures.
     
    The big question being asked across the board, from left to right, is how the government will pay for the reforms being promised, including of the  education system, underscored by Renzi's visit to an elementary school in Treviso. This was Renzi's first formal visit as Premier and took place just one day after he was confirmed by Parliament in a vote of 378 to 220. "Italy will become great and important only if we invest in schools. For this reason we decided to begin here since in past years teachers have been given scant consideration," he told the teachers. He was applauded in the streets by most of the citizens, surprised at finding him in their midst, but, incidentally, he was also booed by a few demonstrators.
     
    Another promise is to cut taxes so as to spur growth and hence employment. To this end Renzi announced that the government will reduce the extremely expensive employers' contributions to welfare funds known as the Regional Tax on Productive Activities (IRAP). The IRAP, which is calculated on a company's billings rather than its profits, costs employers some 700 billion euros annually but pays for 30% of the Italian national health service. Renzi promised that the IRAP will be reduced by a "double figure." Employers immediately went to work, figuring that by this Renzi meant a 10% minimum, which translates into a saving of perhaps E 30 billion ($40 billion). This had to be almost immediately corrected by Renzi and by Labor Minister Giuliano Poletti, who explained that what was actually meant was in monetary terms, not percentages, and hence E 10 billion ($13 billion).
     
    The malicious, however, were already comparing the promised IRAP reduction to former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's campaign promise to eliminate the property tax on first homes, the IMU. This was in fact eliminated--but had to be reinstated later in other forms.
     
    The second potential problem area is, believe it or not, culture. Italy has the good fortune to have 420 state-owned cultural institutions, plus 108 archaeological sites visited by no less than 40 million visitors a year. Another 20 million or so tourists visit the nation's 3,409 state-owned museums and 802 monuments, all of which must be carefully managed and maintained. According to Italia Nostra, in the Sixties industry-oriented choices were made which harmed the landscape, such as the installation in prize locations of mega-factories for steel production, but which are now delocalized in China, India and elsewhere. "Government-subsidized industrial districts were created but are now abandoned relics," say Italia Nostra spokesmen.
     
    The new Culture Minister, Dario Franceschini, is expected to tidy this up. He said proudly this week that "Culture is our petroleum." By this he presumably meant that the cultural heritage will be a money-earner, but this approach is, to many, superficial. Franceschini is a veteran politician with long experience, but none of it in the field of culture. Taking issue with his phrasing was the Florentine Tomaso Montanari, one of Italy's foremost art historians; it was Montanari who blew the whistle on the mega-thefts in the Naples Biblioteca Girolamini. This week Montanari reminded readers of the daily Il Fatto Quotidiano that the Culture Ministry was until last week headed by Massimo Bray (bypassed for Franceschini), who had been doing an excellent job as its "first minister truly devoted to bringing change to the Culture Ministry."
     
    The former Minister Bray is recognized, and not only by Montanari, for having made two personal trips to Pompeii to see the damage wrought by the past two years of intense rain. He is credited with battling, on behalf of the cultural heritage, against internal obstructionism in the ministry by a stubborn bureaucracy which refused change. Renzi had also sneered at Franceschini back in February of 2009 as a "deputy disaster" and "disappointment." As mayor of Florence, Renzi himself, writes Montanari, did little for the city that involved its cultural heritage, considered solely as a marketing tool.


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    "Mamma Mia!" A Government with a Difference


    ROME - Talk about lapidary remarks: here are three which sum up the creation of Premier Designate Matteo Renzi's cabinet, sworn into office at 11:30 am Saturday.


    "This government will last the entire legislature"--Renzi, promising that his new government will endure until the natural end of the legislature in four years time.


    " Sorry to disappoint those who relish whispers from behind-the-scenes, but nobody twisted my arm"--President Giorgio Napolitano, on his many hours of consultations with Renzi over, first, the program and, at the end of this week, the names of the cabinet members.


    "Who, me, Justice Minister? Mamma mia, what an enormous responsibility!"--Andrea Orlando, 45, member of Renzi's Partito Democratico (PD), on learning that he had been tapped for what is--and not only in consideration of former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's travails--one of the toughest slots in the cabinet.


    This is the second smallest cabinet in Italian history. With only sixteen ministers, its downsizing is surpassed only by the 1947 emergency cabinet headed by Alcide De Gasperi, which brought together the Christian Democrats, Communists and Socialists in common cause. The slimming down of the cabinet should add efficiency, as should the novelty that Renzi has no deputy premier. His Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, who split with Berlusconi over support of the outgoing government headed by Enrico Letta, had been Letta's number two, but has relinquished the post, leaving Renzi more room to maneuver.


    Changes in age and gender are also new for Italy and will, it is hoped, breach the paralysis that has been a hallmark of the past few years in Italy (some would say the past two decades). For the first time fully half of Renzi's cabinet ministers are women. Their average age is 45; by comparison, the eight men are older on the average, at 52.


    In choosing his partners for what even skeptics hope will be a successful and enduring round of government, Renzi said that he would not install women merely as dress-up. The new Education Minister Stefania Giannini, 53, is a former president of the University of Foreigners at Perugia and comes into the government representing former Premier Mario Monti's Scelta Civica. Maria Lanzetta, 58, was mayor of Monasterace in Reggio Calabria. She has been for some time now in the news for the brutal threats received from the local Mafia, the n'Drangheta. She heads the Regional Affairs Ministry. The youngest among the women is Minister for Reforms Maria Elena Boschi, 33, trained as a lawyer. Second youngest is Marianna Madia, also 33, neo-Minister for Simplification, whatever that will mean. Like Boschi, Madia is a PD faithful.


    The elder statesman in the cabinet is the economist Pier Carlo Padoan, 64. A technocrat (rather than a party man) with broad international experience, Padoan has been handed Italy's single hottest political potato, the Finance Ministry. Behind him is a distinguished career as former chief economist for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OCSE) and, until yesterday, as head of Italy's statistics-gathering agency, ISTAT. He made his first statements as Finance Minister he Saturday, speaking from Australia. "I only met Renzi once," he told an Italian reporter by cell phone.


    "Naturally we've been speaking these past few hours. For me the essential is that we not create the usual split between the Finance Ministry and the Premier's office. We have to walk hand in hand." He is credited with promoting a careful balance between growth and austerity, and to this end, lower taxes.


    The second key post involving the economy is Labor, whose overseers will be the experienced Giuliano Poletti, 62, president of the leftist Legacoop of Imola and of its financial sidebar, Coopfond. Today he is considered a "technician" in the government but had been an activist in the now defunct Italian Communist Party (PCI). The third of the trio of economic posts is a business woman, Federica Guidi, 45, to take over the Ministry of Development. Guidi is a former president of the youth wing of Confindustria, the Italian national association of manufacturers; her father had been its vice president.


    The fourth ministry which involves the economy is the Ministry of Agriculture, to be headed by Maurizio Martina, 36, a PD stalwart considered close to the party's former leader, Pier Luigi Bersani.


    There is one more key post worth watching. Graziano Delrio, 54, is particularly close to Renzi and is, like Renzi himself, an admirer of the late Florentine mayor, the leftist Catholic Giorgio La Pira. Delrio is a former mayor of Reggio Emilia and president of the national association of mayors, ANCI. In the Letta government had for a period served as Minister for Regional Affairs. The new Undersecretary to the Premier, Delrio has nine children of his own and will, by all accounts, be a sort of political godfather to Renzi--"his older brother," as one pundit here put it.
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    Napolitano Taps Renzi--so Now What?


    ROME - If the cabinet which Premier-designate Matteo Renzi is cobbling together is confirmed within the next week or so, as is predicted, it will be Italy's third emergency government in a row, and one again lacking the benefit of sanction by voters. But never mind: after his long meeting with President Giorgio Napolitano in the Quirinal Palace on Monday, Renzi said Monday that the two did not chat about the names of potential members of his cabinet, but instead discussed a program of four crucial reforms which Renzi says he will "go for broke" to introduce within the next four months. The next day, Tuesday, Renzi--who is not a member--entered Parliament and actually got lost, if briefly. Can he help Italy find its way out of what he has called "a swamp"? 

     


    The first of his stated goals, which he hopes to have voted by the end of this month, is the revised election law agreed upon in a meeting between Renzi and former Premier Silvio Berlusconi. As described so far, the bill, whose aim is to ensure governability, would boost the party or coalition winning at least 37% of the vote in a national election to a 55% majority in Parliament. Under the existing despised "Porcullum" or pigsty law, the majority premium could apply to a party winning only 30% of the vote. If none achieves that 37%, a run-off would take place. This is important because the Italian vote has lurched into a three-way split with the right grouped around Berlusconi and his reborn Forza Italia (FI); the left around Renzi's Partito Democratico (PD); and the radicalized, angry heterogenous voters supporting Beppe Grillo in the Moviment Cinque Stelle (M5S). 



    The second goal, to be achieved by the end of March, is introduction of what Renzi calls, in English, "il Job Act," or redistribution of the labor market. This will require whittling away some of the guarantees for workers introduced in the Socialist party-sponsored "Statute of the Workers" back in 1970. It presupposes making it easier to fire workers so as to hire others, especially young people. The unions are not happy, neither are craftsmen and owners of small businesses. In Rome today thousands demonstrated. At home in Florence this weekend Renzi himself, the city's former mayor, was met by a demonstration of unionized city employees. He has also proposed a one-size-fits-all unemployment benefit. 
     


    The third goal, slated theoretically for enactment by the end of April, is a reform of the bureaucracy. This is complex, for it implies reducing the number of workers employed in the government sector while boosting its efficiency at the same time. 



    The fourth goal proposed by the end of May is revision of taxation. Because the government administration is old, its modernization would require those lower taxes which will, it is hoped, stimulate productive employment. 



    Can this be done? Redistribution of the labor market, for one thing, will require structural reforms, and this implies actions over the longer term. Among these is reform of the Senate, considered by many too close a mirror of the Chamber of Deputies, or an "overly symmetrical bicameral legislature" that tends to create legislative paralysis. 



    "Above all he must act swiftly," says Sergio Fabbrini, professor of political science and international relations at the prestigious LUISS school of government in Rome. "Renzi has just one possibility: to govern through a direct relationship with the citizens, explaining to them--even before he speaks to the politicians--just what it is he intends to do." Fabbrini warns that, while it is true that the governing partners must first agree, that will not suffice. "A precondition for the country to go forward is not only to achieve agreement within the government, but also with the others. What is needed is a pact with the voters, if we are to emerge from this horrid period." 



    On the other hand, Renzi's secret weapon is fear of new general elections. While his governing partner, outgoing Interior Minister Angelino Alfano may be tempted to talk tough to Renzi, this will not be easy. Alfano's New Center Right party (NCD) is a splinter from the former Berlusconi-dominated Partito della Liberta' (PDL), and no one knows how the NCD will perform in an election. The Renzi-Berlusconi revised election law agreement included a 5% minimum vote for parties to enter into Parliament. This clause has the smaller parties, including Angelino's, nervous. Renzi's gamble is that fear of new elections will keep his troops in order--and just may allow him to meet some of his deadlines. Beppe Grillo's M5S has lost a few percentage points in recent polls, but even so, "Both the PD and those further to the right around Berlusconi and Alfano are terrified of facing an election against Beppe Grillo," said a Renzi insider.
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    Politics Between Zen and the Swamp





    ROME - As one Italian commentator put it, some government leaders arrive on the scene pre-stamped with sterling silver hallmarks, but with time tarnish into tin. The perhaps overly harsh example given was Mario Monti, who indeed began as a centrist premier with a flourish that faded all too quickly. The positive example cited is Enrico Letta, who arrived as premier with little sparkle, but who is leaving office after only nine months with high marks and a sterling reputation. But leaving he is, and with obvious rancor.


    Today the question of silver hallmarks was repositioned as a choice between the politics of zen versus an exit from the swamp. Letta and his fellow Partito Democratico (PD)and rival leader Matteo Renzi have had icy relations for weeks, to the point that they are barely on speaking terms. On Wednesday Letta gave a 40-minute speech laced with sarcasm addressed at Renzi, who has publicly called for Letta to "take a step back," as the currently popular phrasing has it. Letta flatly refused, saying he will not bow out for Renzi,  unless his successor's program is made clear--and then Letta presented his own program, which ranged from fighting against corruption to creating jobs for the unemployed. However, he added, he is philosophical: "I'm living day to day with a sense of zen calm," he said.


    He needed that: for weeks Letta has come under a barrage of friendly fire and rumors circulated claiming that he is essentially a reborn Christian Democrat. As a result, Letta, the sober economist who managed to bolster the Italian debt position vis a' vis Europe, seemed on the threshold of being obliged to pass the hand to the slightly younger but more charismatic and fast-talking Matteo Renzi, former mayor of Florence. Within his party Letta had come under criticism for having a centrist government which incorporated rightist votes, necessary because of Italy's current three-way political split. As leader of the traditional left, Letta's PD, which includes a hefty contingent of truculent trade unionists, had to choose as governing allies either the right under the leadership of Berlusconi, or the irascibles of Beppe Grillo's Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S).


    On the other hand, among the credits acknowledged to Letta was the elimination from the government of former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's party without the collapse of that very government, no mean feat. The result was that the Berlusconi forces have been splintered into two parties.


    Even before the PD secretariat met this afternoon to debate the change--significantly, without the presence of Letta himself--, the media were listing the names of probable ministers for a new, slightly more left-leaning government which, despite the criticism leveled at Letta, is likely to incorporate a party called the New Center-Right.


    If Renzi, only last month elected national general secretary of the party, is successful in taking over leadership of this new government, it will be the third since national general elections were held. This is an obvious problem: like Letta's, Renzi's nomination does not reflect a choice by the electorate, and this is surely a weakness. In elbowing his way into office Renzi also runs the risk of burnout, as already happened in the past when Massimo D'Alema shoved Romano Prodi aside and within a year was himself permanently sidelined.


    Wearing a black jacket but no tie, in a 30-minute speech Renzi told the PD executive in Rome Thursday that, "There are moments when the leaders of a political party are called upon to give directions for the road ahead. Total transparency is essential. This is one of those times, and we must not lose ourselves in endless discussions, but clarify what proposals we offer the nation." Letta, Renzi added, had headed a "service executive" which had contributed to shoring up a difficult situation, but now a "new executive" was required. In case there were doubts about which new executive he had in mind, Renzi meant his own, which--he promised--would not hesitate to take the necessary risks to bring about reforms immediately. "We need a radical project if we are, all together, to drag ourselves out of the swamp. We cannot go forward in a situation of uncertainty. Yes, I have boundless ambition."


    The prestigious Senator Luigi Zanda, also of the PD, warned that the more time lost, the worse the situation risks becoming. "The [Letta] government has done what it could. But now it is time to speed things up with a package of reforms so that we can have a government that will last the entire legislature," said Zanda. Institutional reforms, including of the Senate, are necessary in this "delicate moment" to accompany the measures being taken to improve the economy. "The acceleration Renzi proposes is a necessity. We need first of all a reform of the state itself."



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    As Others See Us


    ROME - In his poem "To a Louse", inspired by seeing one of the tiny beasties crawling on a lady's hat in church, Robert Burns wrote, O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us/To see oursels as ithers see us. Indeed, this is a good moment to consider how others are seeing Italy and advancing suggestions on What Is To Be Done. Otherwise these are days stasis.


    For the next two weeks Matteo Renzi, who heads the Partito Democratico, and Premier Enrico Letta, who heads the government in the name of the Partito Democratico, are expected to remain at polite loggerheads with no definitive solution over the future of the government. Behind their jittery quiet lurks the risk of new elections, which both say they do not want. Given this time vacuum, a consideration of the points of view of political outsiders, both Italian and foreign, may be useful.


    First, the somewhat ominous political agenda:

    --Feb. 15 - The crucial Chamber of Deputies debate begins Tuesday over the revised electoral law dubbed the "Italicum," elaborated by Partito Democratico (PD) secretary Matteo Renzi and former premier Silvio Berlusconi of Forza Italia. If it does not past a government crisis may result.

    --Feb. 20 - The PD meets for the second time so far this year for a "countdown," in the words of Corriere della Sera. Renzi is demanding immediate enactment of reforms or else the government will sink like a stone.

    --Feb. 21 - Premier Enrico Letta's law decree which goes under the name "Destinazione Italia" goes before the Chamber of Deputies for enactment. The decree is aimed at making Italy more competitive abroad and more attractive to foreign investors (he is just back from Abu Dhabi where he negotiated an investment).

    --Feb. 21 - The Senate is to vote on a prison reform bill nicknamed "Svuota Carceri" (Empty Prisons). In what became a formal vote of confidence the bill, which would release convicts with minor offenses but also some with convictions for Mafia, has passed in the Chamber of Deputies, but continues to be contested by Beppe Grillo's Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) and the Northern League.

    --Feb. 26 - A bill which would promote political transparency by eliminating much of the public financing of political parties by 2017 must be voted by the Senate or lapse. Letta's Council of Ministers approved it as a law decree in December. It was passed in the Chamber of Deputies in mid-December with 288 votes versus 115 nays and 7 abstentions.


    In the meantime, others are speaking. At January's 44th World Economic Forum at Davos the struggling Italian economy was analyzed by several prestigious participants. Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff called the youth unemployment statistics, with Italy stalled at 50%, "really horrific" for the loss of the valuable resources of its youth. British businessman Sir Martin Sorrell agreed: "You cannot have a situation where 50% of your young people are out of work.... It is politically and socially unacceptable." Sorrell said he is concerned that, between the "bookends of Europe" (i.e., the UK and Germany), the three big problem areas remain France, Spain and Italy, which is "bumping on the bottom."


    Many are pleading for more attention to be paid to Italy's culture heritage as an economic tool. Making a strong case for this is economist Marco Magnani, 40, in his new book Come sara' l'Italia del 2020, Sfide e opportunita' di crescita per sopravvivere alla crisi (Italy in 2020, Challenges and grown opportunities to survive the crisis, published by Utet). "Culture is our shale gas," says Magnani, a graduate of the University of Rome with a master's from Columbia and experience at J.P. Morgan in New York, Mediobanca in Milan and in U.S. think tanks. He considers culture a source of development because it encourages the sort of creativity which has always distinguished Italy.


    Magnani criticizes Italy for devoting too little attention to research and development. Italy's R & D investment amounts to only 1.25% of its GDP, miniscule when compared with that of Finland (3.78%), Germany (2.84%) and France (2.25%). In a recent interview with Riccardo Stagliano' of Il Venerdi', Magnani urged what he terms "low-cost innovation. By this I mean not only technological innovation, but innovative production methods, logistics, organization and governance." Smaller and mid-sized companies, which are the heart of Italian manufacturing today, should make greater distinction between family ownership and the management.


    Specializations within the framework of culture should be encouraged along with creation of more schools where they are taught, essential for creating jobs as art restorer, exhibition curator, shipper and insurer and in cinema, music and the like. "The tourist 'mines' should be our country's key industry and exploit the role of the principle cities while rediscovering the provinces, their foods and wine, their fairs and crafts.|"


    Others are demanding greater emphasis on the cultural heritage, but in other ways. Last week the Financial Times reportedthat Italy is suing the big international ratings agencies for damages because, in their drastic downgrading of Italy last year, they did not take into account the wealth represented by the nation's rich and complex heritage, from the Colosseum to movies like La Dolce Vita. There seems to be no lawsuit yet, but a magistrate is examining the possibility.
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    The Atonal Symphony of Political Italy


    ROME - Let's imagine political Italy as if a performance by a symphony orchestra playing less Mozart than modern atonal, which is by definition music that has no tonal center or key. The conductor, the economist Premier Enrico Letta, faces such unruly musicians that he can barely keep hold of his baton. In the background on stage the chorus, singing as insistently as a work by Philip Glass, warns that the number of those who've slipped below the poverty level has risen from 16% to 18%, or to almost one out of every six.
     
    Out of this cacophony the loudest performance comes from the Grillini section of noisy percussionists. From afar their leader, Beppe Grillo, had set the tempo, and so the Grillini MPs stormed through the Chamber of Deputies, trying to overwhelm the representatives of their government. Held back by ushers and security forces, they literally got into fistfights and then occupied the hall used by a commission.
     
    Brawling and screaming, they were protesting a bill just passed by the government, which they believe gave the Bank of Italy too much of a liquidity break (EU 7.5 billion or over $10 billion). With the mayhem came a trade of insults. A woman Grillino said a Parliamentary guard had slapped her. Her male colleague shouted that the women MPs of Letta's Partito Democratico (PD), were there only for having performed sexual services (he used the slang word for oral sex). Curiously, this incident launched a mini-debate in the Italian press over whether or not these "services" were acceptable (and hence no offense to the lady MPs) or not (hence offensive).
     
    And on to the brass section. Their most raucous voice this week was its old trumpeter Silvio Berlusconi, last month expelled from the Italian Senate but back on stage again to launch his revived old-new political party, Forza Italia, in Sardinia. Dropping his solo performance, he began a duet with his younger new alter ego, Giovanni Toti, 45, former TV announcer for one of Berlusconi's own Mediaset channels. Introducing Toti to the audience, Berlusconi made a point of reassuring his golden-fingered oldies that, unlike Matteo Renzi of the PD, he was not dumping any of his top brass into the trash bin. He and Toti simply adored each other, "but don't think that we are gay!" This witticism brought down the house with a deafening blast of laughter and applause.
     
    The trill of a courageous solo clarinet came from the woman who is president of Parliament, Laura Boldrini, 53, former journalist. In a plenary session of the Chamber she had forced the vote supporting the Bank of Italy--that vote which precipitated the unruly demonstration by the Grillini--in order to speed up action in Parliament so that the bill to modernize and replace the despised Porcellum election law can be passed by the end of this month. Grillo's Movimento Cinque Stelle had tried to block the vote providing bank liquidity for just that reason, so Boldrini applied a rarely applied regulation, known as "the Guillotine," which forces an immediate vote.
     
    In his blog an outraged Grillo wrote that this meant Boldrini must "spontaneously resign." But even he was displeased with his section's wild performance. By the end of the week he was in Rome to tell his out-of-control youngsters in Parliament that they must learn to smile and turn the other cheek, even when gravely provoked. At the same time Grillo himself has done nothing to stop provocations and in Parliament is pressing ahead, fortissimo, with a tuneless resolution to have President Giorgio Napolitano impeached.
     
    During the interval, the audience was brought back to reality by reading, in the program notes, the fairly bleak annual report issued Jan. 30 by Italy's foremost pollster, Eurispes. "Rapporto Italy 2014" showed that, on the basis of polling in December and early January, one out of three Italians, or 30.8%, has insufficient disposable income to reach the end of the month. Among those who have trouble reaching the end of the month, over half (51.8%) dip into their savings. In addition, requests for bank loans are rising 10% every year, for 31% over the past three years.
     
    If the more unruly among the orchestra musicians would tune in to this reality, they would also take note that the distance between ordinary citizens and the institutions is widening, with 70.6% of the Italians saying that their confidence in the political institutions has declined. Government and Parliament are at the bottom of the list, with a consensus of only 16%. Confidence in President Napolitano stands at 44.2% and for the judiciary, 41.4%. Interestingly, the Carabinieri top a generally high degree of consensus for the military, with 76.3%. And the so-called "Bergoglio effect" within the Roman Catholic Church has boosted its consensus from the 37% of a year ago to today's 49%.
     

    The larger political implications of the loss of confidence in the political parties play into the hands of what Ezio Mauro, editor-in-chief of La Repubblica daily, calls the "nichilism" of Beppe Grillo, who "proposes to the exasperated citizenry a permanent short circuit capable only of producing political cinders...with a final blast." Trying to avoid just this, orchestra conductor Letta was in Abu Dhabi Sunday hoping to solicit business. Italy's debt will drop for the first time in six years, he told an Arab TV news channel, and after five years of troubled times, he believes that. "The economy will grow by 1% this year and 2% the next."

  • Op-Eds

    Pimples, Warts & All. "Paint my Picture Truly Like Me!"

    ROME - "Paint my picture truly like me," Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) told the artist about to paint his portrait, "pimples, warts, and everything as you see me." Is this what Silvio Berlusconi told Paul Stuart, the Sunday Times photographer famous for his realistic portraits?  For it, Stuart and reporter John Follain traveled to Berlusconi's posh residence at Arcore outside Milan, where Berlusconi was staying with his 28-year-old fiancee Francesca Pascale, former Neapolitan beauty queen. What they found was Berlusconi, warts and all, or rather, crepe wrinkles, fatigue and all. The interview itself broke no new ground, but Italian commentators tend to agree that the less than flattering, unretouched photographs published this Sunday did.

    From face lifts to hair transplant, it is no secret that, particularly over the past decade,  Berlusconi, who is now 77 years old, has made every effort to keep himself, or at least to make himself appear, as youthful as possible; Follain wrote that during the interview traces of face makeup were visible on Berlusconi's cheeks. Even so, the change of pace implied by the Sunday Times magazine front page photo suggests that the man who was premier for nine years, and who now risks house arrest or assignment to social services after conviction for fraud, is adopting a change of pace. Why? And what's going on?

    It's not only the new facial candour, either, for Berlusconi is breathing life into his formerly dissolved political party Forza Italia by launching a bright young thing as its head, to the ill-disguised wrath of the old pols like Dennis Verdini, who had been Berlusconi's sidekicks until today. On Saturday Giovanni Toti, 45, resigned his job as TV announcer on one of Berlusconi's own channels to take over as "political counsellor" running Forza Italia.

    The Partito Democratico (PD) is itself now headed by the even younger Matteo Renzi, Florentine mayor born in 1975. That party's wrinkles are now showing nevertheless, for last week Renzi too made a pilgrimage to Arcore to strike a deal with Berlusconi over revision of the hated "Porcellum" (pigsty) election law. Renzi returned triumphant, boasting that the deed is done. The proposed revisions are stalled at the moment over whether or not individual names will appear on ballots and how the constituency areas will be drawn up. This battle is to go before Parliament this week, but even before that predictably bitter debate begins, the Renzi-Berlusconi summit at Arcore has brought out the wrinkles in the PD itself. The party's only recently elected president, Gianni Cuperlo, resigned in a huff because in organizing the summit Renzi put the disgraced Berlusconi right back on the political center stage.

    Those who defend Renzi point out, on the other hand, that in democracies including the US rival political organizations cooperate over important legislation. Less high mindedly, the Renzi-Berlusconi accord effectively shoved the truculent Beppe Grillo at least momentarily off stage, no mean feat. Grillo himself admitted this. Meeting with the Foreign Press Association in Rome Thursday, he said that "the only point of this [Berlusconi-Renzi] electoral reform proposal is to block us because we are a danger to the system." Typical of his more private meetings, Grillo dropped his wild man public persona and appeared quiet, friendly and reasonable, and rather wearily hinted that he may be getting tired of the political ruckus.

    The problem is that the splintering of the PD is serious. On the one hand, if the deal with Berlusconi flops, it will take down with it Renzi himself and the government headed by Enrico Letta, of his same party, and will precipitate new elections. This is Renzi's weakness--but on the other hand this is also his strength. The PD and its quarrelsome minor party backers are still well ahead of Berlusconi's new party or even of a rightist coalition. The last thing any of them want right now is for new elections to be triggered--but who is holding the trigger finger?

    In the background, needless to say, is Italy's troubled economy, one of the topics discussed at the World Economic Forum at Davos. More on this next week.
  • Art & Culture

    Stolen Treasures on View at Quirinal Palace

    ROME - He wasn't giving away any secrets about how they did it, but General Mariano Mossa, who heads the world-renowned, 350-strong art retrieval squad of the Carabinieri corps, was proud as can be on Tuesday, when he presented to the press the exhibition "La Memoria ritrovata" (Memory Recovered).
     

    On view through March 16 in the stately halls of the Quirinal Palace in Rome is a stunning exhibition of 110 archaeological treasures, religious objects and paintings retrieved by the Carabinieri during the past three years.

    The stolen items range from a 6th C. BC warrior's helmet to red- and black-figured Attic vases, a huge gilded cross taken from a church, a pile of rare ancient coins, and l8th Century paintings of Roman ruins, including a splendid oil on canvas of the Roman Pantheon by Paolo Panini. A magnificent red-figured Attic vase was stolen from the Naples Archaeological Museum.

    "Money makes our heritage come under continual attack," said General Mossa. "The illicit trade in art works is an all-too common crime, fourth down the line after the clandestine dealing in arms, drugs and financial products. Often we find ourselves dealing with international organized crime and money laundering. And now they are using the Internet to sell abroad."

    For this reason a crucial part of their job is maintaining on line an up-to-date compendium of 5.7 million stolen objects and 560,000 images.

    The Carabinieri work is complex in other ways. It involves hunting down forgeries of all kinds, patrolling (including by helicopter and infrared lights) archaeological sites and monitoring web sites for suspect items offered for sale. Investigators travel worldwide to trace items.

    They also make their own restitutions, such as the rare, large fossil of a fish, one hundred million years old, found in Italy in the hands of a private collector and returned to Lebanon. And they have been successfully showing Italian bishops and parish priests how best to protect the objects in their care. As a result of this, the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI) are now creating their own data bank.

    According to Curator Louis Godart, the twenty-three funerary vases on view, which originally occupied an entire underground mausoleum near Perugia, "represent the most extraordinary single Etruscan archaeological find of the past thirty years."

    The stone vases contained the cinders of deceased members of the princely Cacni family, and date from the fourth to the first centuries BC. Hellenistic, they reflect the tradition of Greek mythology: one depicts the sacrifice of Iphigenia and another, the chariot race between Pelops and Oenomaus.

    Together with 3,000 other objects in the mausoleum, they had been dug up, and then hidden, by a contractor during an illegal excavation for the foundations for a new building, and some show missing bits as a result of the rough machine digging. "A lot had been destroyed," said Professor Godart.

    "This is the first time an entire funerary complex has ever been found." " Historically the themes and style of the urns demonstrate the colonization of the Etruscan territory along the Tiber valley and into today's Umbria.

    Initially only a single photo and a chunk of marble head from the mausoleum were noted in Rome, in the possession of a seller. Investigators had no idea of the source so, to know more, the Carabinieri consulted an archeologist from Tor Vergata Rome University, who suggested, correctly, the territory around Perugia. From damage done to some of the urns, it was apparent that the finders were not professional tomb robbers. Finally the Carabinieri traced the objects to a building contractor near Perugia.

    Another treasure on view in the Quirinal Palace, the so-called Andromeda Vase, was recovered in 2010 by a Japanese dealer in the Geneva free port in Switzerland.

    Asked what are the current trade routes for the export of clandestine objects, General Mossa said curtly, "Toward the money." It is known, however, that some clandestine routes go via the Balkans toward East Europe.

    The Swiss free ports remain a frequent destination and, most recently, Arab nations aiming to create new museums from scratch so as to attract tourism.

    Archaeological artifacts are popular in the clandestine market because their provenance, or commercial history, is relatively easy to invent. Stolen paintings remain popular as hostages in drug dealings because major bank transfers today draw too much attention.

    Entry to the exhibition is free of charge from Tuesday to Saturday, and costs E5 on Sundays, save for Jan. 26, when the exhibition will be closed. Quirinal Palace spokesman are proud that during the tenure of President Giorgio Napolitano over one million have visited the building, and among these, half a million in order to tour exhibitions. Just last year over 119,000 visited the magnificent palace that is home to the head of state.
  • Op-Eds

    Topping the New Year Agenda: Sleight-of-Hand Taxes, Elections Law Revision


    ROME - Tax turbulence and rival proposed revisions of the law governing national general elections top the new year political agenda, with speedy action demanded. The hated housing tax known until now as the IMU was originally imposed upon primary residences, and the income deriving from it divided between the state and the local townships. After the tax proved wildly unpopular, it came under heavy pressure on the right from both Silvio Berlusconi, who promised that he would reimburse it to householders, and Angelino Alfano. The governing coalition running the show since last March - which depends upon support from Alfano - promised therefore to abolish that tax, and actually did so last Nov. 27.
     
    When the nation's bookkeepers grasped (surprise!) that money to run the government was insufficient, the tax was partialy reinstated with the nickname "Mini-IMU," due for payment in late January. To compensate for the missing income from the canceled IMU, a new local services tax, to replace last year's local tax called the TARSU, was also invented. Initially dubbed the TARES and now TASI, it is to be applied not necessarily to the property owner, but to the resident of the house, including if he is a tenant.
     
    Application of these substitute taxes is proving chaotic, and many consider this sleight-of-hand taxation. Contributors complain not only that the these tax innovations are chaotic, but that in the end they may wind up paying more. Local administrators who are to collect the taxes and take their cut grumble that they haven't the time to work out how all these novel changes are to be applied. Despite these fears the government continues to reassure Italians that taxes are on their way to being lowered. Already, says Finance Minister Fabrizio Saccomanni, 71, fiscal pressure has decreased by 0.1% and that, "In 2014 taxes will drop. This will be the year of change."
     
    According to Saccomanni, "Last summer, in a document on the IMU, I tried to clarify the nature of the problem but unfortunately did not succeed. A tax on real estate exists in every country, and the IMU cancellation cannot simply be left as a debt. This is what happened: we reduced the tax on real estate in 2013. To cover the loss of income we did not apply new taxes, but made some budget cuts and an advance on taxation with a bit of retouching on financial transactions and on tax stamps." (The tax stamps in question are those tacked onto legal documents and important receipts.)
     
    But these were not the only signs of economic turbulence. A week ago the Letta government announced that the paychecks of the already poorly paid teachers in the state system were to be slashed by E 150 ($205) monthly. This too had been excogitated by Finance Minister Saccomanni, but within two days of the announcement the outcry was such that the order was rescinded amidst pleas for Saccomanni to resign (he says he will not).
     
    The second big-ticket item on the New Yeawr agenda: Matteo Renzi, the new head of the Partito Democratico (PD), demands revision within days, not weeks, of the "Porcellum" (Pigsty Law) electoral law, declared unconstitutional last month, eight years after it was adopted. The "Porcellum" accords a huge surplus of members of parliament to the political party with the largest number of votes, even when - as is the case in recent years - no party receives more than one-third of the vote. It can be argued that the Porcellum guarantees a kind of stability by putting into power a minority government, but then its quarrels continue to erupt inside Parliament, leading toward paralysis. Renzi is therefore campaigning ardently for revision within days, not weeks, of the Porcellum. To ensure success, Renzi is working hard at persuading allies in other parties, and is expected to present his preferred variation, after broad political discussions, within days. Meantime here are a few variations under discussion:
     
    --Version 1: Supported by Deputy Premier Angelino Alfano of the Nuovo Centrodestra (New Center-right, NC), this proposed revision would have a two-turn election, with the two leading parties competing in a run-off. The winner would have 60% of the members of Parliament while the remaining 40% would be divided proportionately among those obtaining at least 5% of the vote in round one.
     
    --Version 2: Supported by Forza Italia, this echoes the Spanish electoral system with the election of 350 MPs versus the 630 elected in Italy at present. Italy would be divided into 118 circumscriptions with a premium of 15% or 92 seats handed to the winning list. A party must win 5% before its list has Parliamentary representation.
     
    --Version 3: This would refer back to the pre-Porcellum formula that lasted until 2005 known as the Mattarellum (named for the author of the bill). It foresees 475 electoral colleges. A premium of 15% would go to the winner but also a 10% reserved quota would go to the mini-parties to guarantee their representation.
     

    In the background is also Renzi's proposal for a radical revision of the very nature of the Italian Senate - plus the possibility that the revised Porcellum and new edition of a much-reduced Senate may go in tandem.

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