100 posts
Italians poorer, wealth gap widens
Poverty is on the increase among Italians and so is inequality of wealth, according to the Bank of Italy. Figures from the country’s central bank show that in 2010 14.4% of Italians were poor – defined as having an income lower than half...
Italy’s left wing mayors top polls
Left wing mayors top polls. Luigi de Magistris, mayor of Naples with 70% support and Massimo Zedda, mayor of Cagliari, with 66%, topped the annual IPR Marketing poll on backing for local politicians for Sole 24 Ore business newspaper. Magistris, a fo...
The monopoly that arch-liberaliser Monti is leaving intact
It is being cast as the mother of all political battles: against the taxi drivers, chemists, notaries, shopkeepers and bakers and their restrictive practices and cosy ‘exclusive’ arrangements, against workers pampered by ‘over pr...
The public spending that Monti left untouched
Italy spends about Euros 23 billion annually on the military, making it among the top ten worldwide in terms of defence expenditure per GDP. But in the packet of swinging spending cuts pushed through by the Government of Mario Monti last month that b...
Italy Braces Itself For The Full Monti
The Italian government, Mario Monti informed the country’s parliament last Thursday, is now planning to concentrate its attentions on achieving economic growth. A timely decision this, since the statistics office announcement a d...
Italy’s Black Christmas
FROM THE RADICAL PRESS - IL MANIFESTO (ITALY) Valentino Parlato 24.12.2011 The analysis of the real state of our country tells us that “salvation” is becoming more distant. We are in recession and we will stay there, while purchasing pow...
Austerity Italy: Monti worse than Berlusconi say communists
“Monti’s polices will bring Italy to default. This budget is worse that one that Berlusconi would have presented,” said Paolo Ferrero, leader of Communist Refoundation at the conclusion of the party’s congress in Naples yester...
Mario Monti's Italian technocracy reveals its true political colours | Viola Caon
Monti's reforms suit Europe. But ordinary Italian workers are being asked to pay for a crisis they didn't causeMario Monti's government has certainly been the most popular in Italy's recent political history. At least for its first week in power. Qui...
Super Mario Shows His Hand
The new Italian government has been in office for less than 20 days. That must have seemed an eternity given the record interest rates Italy has been forced to pay by the markets over the past few weeks, while uncertainty remained over what Mario Mon...
Pampered? Italian pensioners are going hungry
“Generous” is a standard description in media reports of the Italian pension system. Yet, on the eve of new cuts to pensions announced by the Government of Mario Monti, a million elderly eat little or badly for economic reasons, according to new...
Monti should destroy the round tables
"Concertazione" was for many decades at the very hardt of Italy's political process. It worked in the way that the government never took any decision regarding taxation, welfare etc. without having installed "round tables" with the organized interest...
Mario Monti : après il Cavaliere, il Professore ?
L´ex-Commissaire européen Mario Monti à la tête du gouvernement technocrate italien Le contraste ne pourrait être plus prononcé ! Depuis le 16 novembre l´Italie est dirigée par Mario Monti, économiste discret qui a accepté le lègue désas...
"The Limits of Technocracy" by Andrew Watt
Both Greece and Italy have installed so-called ‘technocratic’ governments led by a former senior European Central Banker and European Commissioner, respectively. The markets reacted with...
Still lost in Europe? Italy’s new beginning
At his first press conference as the new prime minister of Italy, Mario Monti said that “Italy must become an element of strength and not weakness of the European Union”. For a long time Italy wasRead more…...
"Godd Riddance Berlusconi – And Viva Italia!" by Zygmunt Bauman
Let me recall the verdicts of the great Portuguese man of letters José Saramago, who – frustrated by the stultifying dilatoriness of Italian legal justice – would not meekly wait for the...
Is There Passion in Social Business?
In places like Naples you don’t survive without passion. Passion keeps you motivated and is a valuable currency in an economy short of cash. People connect and trade in passion, the only commodity in rich supply. But passion doesn’t have...
How Europe propped up the buffoon Silvio Berlusconi | Jackie Ashley
Italian politics was a joke. But, within the security blanket of the eurozone, most people simply shrugged their shouldersDavid Cameron and George Osborne have resigned. They did their best, but were unable to carry support, even in the Tory party, f...
Sympathy for the devil. Well, at least he’s not Berlusconi
Well, what a week that was. 7% was the new 6%, the cows broke through the ECB’s electric fence, the Greeks took a week to decide who ought to be prime minister after, to be honest, the G20 decided George Papandreou shouldn’t be, and Silvi...
Italy’s post-Berlusconi hangover
Ordinary Italians may well have woken today with a bit of a headache after last night’s celebrations over the departure of prime minister Berlusconi. The unwelcome after-effects of that prosecco won’t have been attenuated by the news in t...
It's time for an ascetic, noble Italy to replace the crass Berlusconi version | Maria Laura Rodotà
The fetish of the 'lovable rogue' showed up the worst of our national character. The best may yet emergeMany Italians, in the past months, have dreamed about Silvio Berlusconi's fall. They would pop open bottles of bubbly, they imagined; and they wou...
Berlusconi has resigned! A setback for kleptocracy
Tonight, with Berlusconi's exit, Europe is feeling a little bit safer. His resignation marks a symbolic victory in the struggle against kleptocracy which has so weakened the public finances of countries in southern Europe. Any of his likely succes...
Will Monti impose austerity on Berlusconi? Will he liberalise Il Cavaliere?
Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi is set to go tonight. There will be much celebrating among progressives and democrats when he does. But, also some very troubling questions. Why couldn’t the Italian people do it? Why did it take outsiders, that cli...
Dal film alla realtà. Il risveglio d’Italia? | di Darina Zeqiri
E adesso che accadrà? Chi ci seguirà? Chi ci rappresenterà? Ed eccoci qui, dopo anni lunghissimi di guerriglia tra pensieri (?!) l’Italia si trova nello stesso bilico di sempre. Che fare? (Categoria: Opinioni | Autore: Darina Zeqiri)...
Will the Italians and the Greeks stand passively by while their governments become puppets of the ECB, IMF and the EU? I doubt it
One thing puzzles me about the recent turn of events in the Eurozone crisis. How will the new Prime Ministers of Italy and Greece persuade the Greek and Italian people to accept the austerity packages they're being asked to swallow as a condition of...
Shaky Italy: Berlusconi creates difficulties for the formation of a Monti-government
This was not forseeable this morning, when I wrote my last blogpost. But as far as the support of the Berlusconi-movement (PDL) for a Monti-led government is concerned, have emerged today major difficulties. The outgoing prime minister seems to be or...
Italian Communists: decision not to hold elections is a gift to xenophobic Northern League
Today the Italian Senate approved an swinging austerity and privatisation package that will pave the way for a “technical” government headed by Mario Monti – a former EU Commissioner who is very close to the global elite of bankers and ch...
Berlusconi loses his job, but the real tragedy is the thousands of normal Italians losing theirs
Drama is unfolding across Europe today as Greece swears in a new Prime Minister and Italy awaits Berlusconi's official resignation. The rising Italian interest rate has meant debts have become uncontrollable for the EU's third largest economy, and t...
Greece and Italy Seek a Solution From Technocrats
"Under the white-hot pressure of the bond markets and the glare of European leaders, both Greece and Italy snapped into action on Thursday, looking to technocratic leaders to pull them back from the brink of chaos.." (NY Times) The technocrat...
Roubini: Why Italy’s days in the eurozone may be numbered
“With interest rates on its sovereign debt surging well above seven per cent, there is a rising risk that Italy may soon lose market access.” Nouriel Roubini predicts gloomy future for Italy and the Eurozone: “The eurozone can survive with the...
Succesful Zero Waste event in Rome
Organised by Zero Waste Lazio with the support of the Italian Zero Waste Network Last weekend the Piazza Apostoli in Rome was filled with more than 3000 people who were asking for a Zero Waste alternative to the “Polverini local plan” which i...
Could Bini Smaghi’s resignation be a condition for French support of Italian Bailout?
After much discussion on the sidelines of the Euro-zone sovereign debt crisis, the Italian member of the ECB’s Executive Board, Lorenzo Bini Smaghi has resigned his position, finally opening the way for another French executive. This has been a...
Italy: Here’s where all the money went
Italy is broke we are told. Well there are reasons for this. This is not an exhaustive list. Euros 120 billion (£102 billion) – tax evasion Euros 60 billion – corruption Euros 230 billion – foregone tax revenues from capital sitting in tax hav...
"This Is The Way The Euro Ends" by Paul Krugman
This is the way the euro ends. This is the way the euro ends. Not with a bang but with bunga-bunga. Seriously, with Italian 10-years now well above 7 percent, we’re now in territory where all the...
"Breaking News: The Working Class caused the Italian Crisis" by John Weeks
When was the last time you read that a country’s economic problems were the result of capitalists demanding too much profit? This question occurred to me when I discovered from Phillip Inman...
Eurosphere: Papandreou gone, Berlusconi to go…
MAIN FOCUS: Berlusconi announces gradual resignation | 09/11/2011 from euro|topics After losing his parliamentary majority, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced on Tuesday evening that he was ready to resign. But he wants to g...
Why Not Now, Cavaliere?
In light of the markets' disastrous reaction to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's announcement that he will step down only after the Italian parliament has adopted the economic reforms he committed to at the latest meeting of EU leaders, the...
Inverting Italy
Things have gotten very bad, very quickly for Italy this morning. Italy’s 10 year borrowing costs opened at 6.8%, already very high but many expected some quick ECB bond buying to help bring it down substantially. However, with the ECB nowhere in s...
"What is holding Italy back?" by Daniel Gros
Italy’s debt crisis has caused political upheaval. What can be done to cure the country’s decade-old growth slump? Since Italy’s capital investment, educational attainment, and market regulation...
A macroeconomic overview of the Italian crisis
Despite all the discussion around the situation in Greece the real fires are burning elsewhere. Though under the current economic and political setting a disorderly default of Greece would be enough to tear apart the euro, the final blow to the sin...
Greco-Roman Achilles’ Heel: Democracy or Leadership?
In assessing the abilities of the E.U. states of Greece and Italy to manage their respective debt-loads as expected by E.U. leaders, the impacts from the governance systems can be distinguished from the impact from compromised or failed leadership. I...
Berlusconi is finished - for real this time
This blog has predicted the imminent resignation of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi many times. In fact I counted, and in the past six years the blog claimed on five separate occasions that his sex and corruption scandals were about to toppl...
Berlusconi's last stand?
Update 15:50 - The vote on the 2010 budget review in the lower house of the Italian parliament has just taken place. As expected, the review was passed because opposition MPs abstained. However, the 'yes' votes were only 308, meaning that Berlusconi...
Eurozone reports and reactions – Italy hot stuff
Yesterday evening the chairman of the Euro Group, Jean-Claude Juncker, held a press conference (recorded, including questions and answers 35:33), together with the Commission vice-president Olli Rehn and the EFSF chief executive officer Klaus Regling...
"The fourth domino teeters on the brink – and it’s almost three times the size of the first three combined" by Andrew Watt
Back in July it was clear that Italy was well on its way to becoming the fourth euro area domino. The country is now wobbling so badly, that one wonders whether it can yet be stabilised. Start with...
Berlusconi’s Destiny, and Italy’s
WASHINGTON—Rumors of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s imminent resignation have spurred speculation in international circles about the future of the Italian government. Meanwhile, anxiety about Italy has spread from European capitals to Washing...
Italy's crisis could be a blessing in disguise | George Irvin
Berlusconi's resignation would not save Italy. But this crisis could force the European Central Bank to face down the marketsAttention has suddenly switched from Greece to Italy. As Italian 10-year bond yields reach 6.67%, eurozone finance ministers...
Italian monitoring: the leaked Berlusconi letter
At the European Commission’s regular mid-day press briefing today, Amadeu Altafaj-Tardio, the spokesman for economic issues, said the Commission’s Italian monitoring team is expected to arrive this week. After agreement Friday in Cannes, the Inte...
Eurosphere roundup: Greece towards interim cabinet, Berlusconi struggles to hold coalition – as usual- ….
Papandreou to step down, interim cabinet to take charge (News) from EurActiv.com Berlusconi struggles to hold coalition together (News) from EurActiv.com Greeks agree coalition government from BBC News | Europe | World Edition Greek leader...
Eurozone: Credible Italy?
We have looked at the background and gaps and filled the Ecofin file with recent EU and eurozone statements. We are anxiously eyeing Greece, but we also know that we are all aboard the Greek rollercoaster on the slopes of the Apennines. The EU finan...
Eurozone Monday: Follow-up to October EU summits
I presume that the finance ministers meeting in the Euro Group and Ecofin 7-8 November 2011 already have these additions to the Council background note in their files. Perhaps others would like to be spared the tedious search. Follow-up to October me...
Eurozone finance ministers Monday: background and gaps
The finance ministers of the Euro Group meet to ride the Greek rollercoaster on the slopes of the Apennines, well after markets open and close in Europe Monday, 7 November 2011. Are we going to see solutions emerging in Greece and Italy ahead of...
Pressure on Italy
Italy is under pressure from the bond markets, and Silvio Berlusconi is under pressure from his counterparts in France, Germany, the US, and the IMF. This is the big enchilada. If Italy goes--and at a 450 basis point spread over Germany, it's on the...
A crisis summit? For Silvio Berlusconi, it's a big wonga-wonga party | Marina Hyde
Only one man is immune to the G20 pressure. The leering Italian PM will surely be history's icon of the grotesque mess we're in"Brilliance or buffoonery?" wondered a Times headline of the Greek PM's policy ricochet this week. How about brainmelt, giv...
