Reform of the educational system sparks protests in Italy
The notorious reform bill on education system has been approved, yesterday morning at 10.30, by the Italian Senate. After days of protests that took place all over the country, The “Gelmini Decree” gathered 162 votes of approval and 134 against (3 senators did not vote). Immediately after the Senate approved this bill, students went mad outside Palazzo Madama and all over Italy.
Clashes erupted yesterday among students in Piazza Navona, a few steps away from “Palazzo Madama”, home to the Italian Senate as the decree was being approved. Even though no one was seriously harmed, the clashes are significant; yet they still do not indicate that the students are united against the government. Officers from the PD (Veltroni’s Partito Democratico) and the IDV (Di Pietro’s Italia dei Valori) were among the protesters. Students were chanting: “Clowns” Clowns!” to the politicians inside the Senate. Students protested throughout Italy, from Milan to Rome, and even in Florence; in Naples, however, they were relatively calm.
The Problem with the left: Veltroni’s stars and stripes masterpiece
Walter Veltroni said that he does not trust politicians that care about polls. Right before the elections–that ended up in a disastrous defeat for the left – anyway, he was paying attention to polls. Why? Because he asked the former Judge Antonio di Pietro (leader of the Italia dei Valori political party) to join him against Berlusconi’s Pdl.
While Veltroni was watching the polls, he knew that his rival/friend was ahead and about to win the elections; this is exactly what happened.
Walter Veltroni and Antonio Di Pietro are very different from one another. Veltroni’s very sophisticated manners and his taste for the jet set society contrast dramatically with Di Pietro’s simple vocabulary and with his more stoic manners and staid past. Just as these two friends are different, so, too, are their respective political parties. The IDV and the Partito Democratico (PD) are two very distinct parties. The IDV is reminiscent of what the former Judge did during the early nineties: namely: Di Pietro’s “clean hands” revolution which sent many corrupted politicians to jail. The PD, on the other hand, is an attempt to re-create a big center-left party after the failure of the PDS (they still had the sickle and the hammer sign on their symbol).
Now, say what you want about Veltroni, but he is certainly not a dummy: he took advantage of his position as the mayor of Rome and has become one of the most influential politicians in our country. He also has made the most of Obama’s motto “yes, we can” and transformed it into the roman slang “se po’ fa’” - which actually means “it’s doable” not “we can do it”. Among other things, Veltroni understood that he could use Obama’s popularity here in Italy at his own advantage.
Two days ago, Mr. Veltroni was being interviewed by Fabio Fazio (our Italian David Letterman) on his successful night show Che Tempo Che Fa (What weather). Once again he did what he is best at: turned things in his favor.
Di Pietro was, in fact, becoming an obstacle for the PD party. The former Judge has said that “the partnership with Veltroni has ended because he wanted to hang out with Berlusconi”. This was in response to Veltroni’s statement on Che Tempo Che Fa in front of a million spectators: “our alliance has ended because Di Pietro has shredded up the agreement we reached before the elections”. What was this agreement? Was it for the two parties to join in a “single political movement”.
Given the profound differences between Veltroni and Di Pietro and between the PD and the IDV, though, that sounds like it was more of a promise than an actual agreement.
While I am writing, Veltroni is accusing the newspapers of focusing too much on this story and of overemphasizing the significance of their separation; he is also accusing Di Pietro of doing more or less the same thing. Both are just trying to hide the fact that they just broke up, but it happened publicly on TV, in front of millions spectators.
You don’t do that in politics unless you really don’t care about your partner, which appears to be the case. Veltroni evidently doesn’t care very much about Di Pietro or his party, because his friend, Berlusconi, doesn’t like him either; Di Pietro, on the other hand, does not like Veltroni because he is friends with his nemesis Berlusconi.
This is not only about Di Pietro and Veltroni, though. This is also about the whole Italian left. There are, undeniably, very big problems in the opposition. The “Italian Democrats” cannot move forward without a political guide, and Veltroni cannot be this guide.
In a long interview with La Repubblica (the main left oriented newspaper in Italy), Veltroni said that the demonstration scheduled for October 25 at the Circus Maximus in Rome, will be a chance for the left to speak out loud against the government, particularly concerning three main themes: the reform of the school system, employment and the economic crisis. Clearly, neither Italy’s longstanding unemployment problem, nor the global crisis are Berlusconi’s fault. It is not Berlusconi’s fault that Italy has always had problems with unemployment, not to mention the global financial crisis. Perhaps Saturday’s demonstration will be a way to measure the level of Veltroni’s popularity? It might be, since he does not trust the polls, as he said.
Veltroni also believes that, “If Obama gets elected, that might change many things in Europe as well”. Maybe he meant that, if a Democrat becomes the President of the United States, the Italian left will have a model to follow? Veltroni is very good at turning things in his favor, and this is a valuable skill to have. Solving the problem of the Italian left, which historically is one the most Russian-oriented political movements in Europe, by looking across the Atlantic is a hat-trick and it would be his masterpiece.
Andrea Loquenzi Holzer and Brittany Christine Toscano
A long awaited revolution, Mr. Brunetta’s fight against the “fannulloni”.
The Public Administration should help citizens in their interactions with the government and make things easier for everyone. It is the first step toward and healthy economic growth. As a result of Marxist-like policies, though, the Italian Pa was transformed into some sort of safe haven for people who don’t like working.
This translates into endless queues in public offices and an enormous waste of public money. The government, in fact, invests roughly 300 billion euro each year in this sector. During the last decade, not only were the salaries of employees doubled and thus kept way above the inflation rate; but Pa’s productivity level has been consistently 50% less than the private sector. The problem here is obvious: while public employees are paid more, they tend to produce less than private workers do.
To understand the impact of Brunetta’s revolution, we have to remember that Italy has 3.65 million state employees. In order to reverse this trend of inefficiency, “The salary is now made up of two parts, one is fixed while the other is, as a result of Brunetta’s reform, linked to productivity, usually between about 10 and 15 euro. It is clear that, if a public worker is at home due to illness, this second part will be reduced”.
It seems rational; although, there has been criticism from the leader of Cisl Union, Raffaele Bonanni who said: “Minister Brunetta has mistaken his role for that of a showman”.
As Pether Popham argues on The Independent, “It is too early to tell if Mr. Brunetta’s reforms have revolutionised national behaviour. Italians have a tendency to react swiftly and prudently to draconian new laws, but then to slide quietly back into their traditional ways when vigilance slackens and the immediate danger has passed”.
We agree on that, but consider this: Renato Brunetta’s predecessor, Luigi Nicolais, attempted to implement a very different strategy: he raised the wages of over 200,000 ministerial employees by 101 euro per month. He also introduced a new productivity based system which recognized the hours of overtime work, by increasing the salary, without any guarantee that the workers would actually increase their level of productivity. This, however, proved to be a rash move that did not result in any improvement.
Brunetta thinks that the Italian Public sector lacks a system of benefits and deterrents. If a worker receives more money for every extra hour at the office, this person will probably work more; on the contrary, calling in sick too many times will mean being fired. Italians cannot afford fannulloni anymore. Who can?
In conclusion, even though it is too early to say that the “Brunetta revolution” is really under way; we can certainly recognize that this Minister is trying to change things, which is great news. We can assume that this change is the reason that his popularity has increased so much in such a short amount of time. This Venice-born politician has, in fact, introduced something that every Italian has dreamed about but that no one else has dared to do before: he has instituted a “turnstile” at the Parliament. Now every member of the Parliament must slide an electronic card in the baffle gate in order to get in and out. What a shame.
Andrea Loquenzi Holzer and Brittany Christine Toscano
Berlusconi’s government: a honeymoon with Italians
They call it “honeymoon”. This is no romantic movie, though, it’s the nickname that Italian newspapers gave to a new political phenomenon: Berlusconi’s personal degree of favor among the Italians, his popularity has now reached 60%. For people that are used to all kinds of promises coming from politicians before any electoral campaign, current results must be shocking; as if, suddenly, Santa Claus would arrive carrying presents in October.
There were a few very important issues on Berlusconi’s desk, immediately after the elections: a stagnant economy, unemployment, the problem with Alitalia, the garbage in Naples, security and justice. Generally speaking, it was a quite difficult situation to face. Speaking about the economy, according to a Ipr Marketing poll made for La Repubblica, 86% of Italians think that inflation should have priority in this government’s agenda. Citizens cannot afford the soaring costs of living. The house market, the food sector, transportation and school have become too expensive during the recent years, salaries, on the other end, have not followed the same trend. The result? People were scared to death about the future and when that happens, the economy tends to suffer. One of the first moves of the new government was eliminating the so called Ici, a homeowners’ tax. This tax does, however, still exist when it comes to secondary properties such as a country house or a second apartment in the city. People who only have one house though, will not have to pay a dime for it. To help older people keep up with soaring prices of energy, this government has introduced what they call the Robin Hood tax. It is an adjustment that forces oil and gas companies to demonstrate their revenues in order to keep prices of gas at an acceptable level.
The second concern, according to the same poll, is unemployment, which 78% of Italians described as their first concern. As everyone knows, Italy has been a country for trade unions since its creation as a Republic. At the end of WWII, the communist partisans who fought against the Nazi-fascist occupation created the Italian constitution with a model in mind: the Russian empire with its bureaucratic apparatus of State owned industries. As a result, over the past four decades, entrepreneurs like Berlusconi have found it very difficult to create their own businesses, since they were oppressed by a scary prototype of the man, the opposite of Alexey Stakanov: the “fannullone”. Sluggards have dominated the scene of the Italian economy until the arrival of Berlusconi. They have been stealing from the State by working for the minimum amount of hours they could, while getting paid like others colleagues that were actually working. This cancer has been fought with passion by Berlusconi’s government and by ministers like Renato Brunetta, the sluggards’ worst nightmare. The Minister of Public Administration wanted to make one thing clear once nominated: there will be no more space for idlers in Italy. The reason this government wants to get rid of such people is quite simple: they keep the job market full and prevent real workers from getting in. Workers’ rights were too rigid and in favour of trade unions before, now they have changed and young people are able to find jobs more easily. It is also true that they now have to prove their skills much more than before, but that’s globalization. If the world is flat as Friedman argues, than the toughs get going when the going gets though, right?
Alitalia is a quite good example of how a State owned firm can be irreparably ruined by sluggards. Fifteen years ago, before the privatization, Alitalia was a black hole for money. The State would provide the flagship company with huge yearly surges of cash on the grounds that it was… the flagship carrier. My father has been working for Alitalia for 35 years and I personally witnessed the development of his career. During the early nineties he was sent to Nicosia (Cyprus) were they had a local office as an Area Manager. He went alone, because my mother decided that it wasn’t a good idea to move the entire family unless really necessary. I was 17 when I went to visit him for the first time. He came to pick me up at the airport with a car generously supplied by Alitalia (it was a Honda Accord). I remember my father telling me that they were also paying for the gasoline for the car. So, say that he wanted to go out for a trip in Paphos, he wouldn’t have paid a penny on his own. Once we got home, I discovered another marvel: the apartment. It was a five room home with one huge kitchen and a huge living room, two bathrooms and two terraces at the top floor of a residential building near the center of Nicosia. Of course I was quite happy with that: I could even play soccer in the living room. Although I remember I couldn’t help asking myself why they would give a single man such a big apartment. Well, my father was a hard worker, he deserved to be treated well, but that was too much even for him. I also remember that we went out for a dinner together with some people from the embassy and some other friends. At the end of that my father signed a piece of paper and claimed that it was up to Alitalia to pay for the bill (800 dollars). Ok, it was a business dinner, but it gives you an idea of how the flagship carrier was: carrying too much weight on its wounded wings.
Multiply those expenses by the number of Area Managers that were around the world at that time and you’ll have an idea of how the revenues of the company were spent, no wonder the situation now is so critical.
Berlusconi has provided a group of buyers for the company, even in spite of all odds. Of course he did not want Air France to buy Alitalia because that would lead to a shift in tourism. France is a direct competitor of Italy when it comes to vacation, the money would follow the tourists. It could have been very easy, in fact, for the French government and Air France to create an advantageous path across the Alps for tourists that would have chosen Italy. But if they gave you the choice between going to Paris for $400 or Rome for $600, where would you go?
Regarding the messy situation in Naples, everyone remembers what it was like to be in the city a few months ago: it was practically like Venice only, instead of water, there was garbage. Berlusconi had sworn to get rid of that pile of trash before the elections. I remember him saying something like “I’ll spend some time in Naples, the amount of time sufficient for me to understand what is going on and to find a way out”. A couple of weeks later, Naples came back to normality. It wasn’t a miracle though; it was just about using the right means to get rid of the garbage once and for all.
Security was another issue on the table. Italy has never been a dangerous place to live, nothing compared to the U.S. or Great Britain. In our country there has been no bloodshed in schools but things are beginning to change. With the great number of immigrants that have come to Italy from Eastern Europe and Africa, people that, usually, do not have stable jobs. Italy has changed a lot. We have witnessed the anger of a Muslim father who buried his young daughter in the backyard for no reason; we have seen soccer supporters beating each others to death during a game; and a Romanian immigrant raping a women on her way home. The government has opted for a “surge”. Not that they wanted to emulate anyone, but it makes sense to have more soldiers when you need them. There are now roughly 3000 troops helping out the police and the Carabinieri in their everyday job. It feels good to spot them somewhere around the city, I have to say. It is still too early to draw conclusions about whether or not the surge has been successful. We don’t know yet but two things are for certain: it can’t be bad, and the soldiers would otherwise just be spending their time being bored in their headquarters.
Last but not least, the reform of Justice. Italian citizens are used to a very slow legal system. In fact there is a joke about (courts) tribunals: when you want to make sure your enemy wins, just sue him. The joke illustrates how long it takes for a court to examine the case and take a decision; about seven years. Indeed, for an ordinary everyday case, that’s the amount of time it takes a judge to hand down a decision. The government has been trying to introduce a new law, called Lodo Alfano, that will speed up the process by organizing the trials in a logical way. As of now, it’s sort of running a scan disk when your PC is too slow.
We don’t know for how long this honeymoon will last for the Italians, but so far so good.
Andrea Loquenzi Holzer/ Brittany Christine Toscano
