Mario Monti could not have chosen better times, ways and venues to announce his government's intention to strike a blow and relaunch the privatization strategy. Perhaps the real meaning of the surprise summit on Monday evening at Palazzo Chigi with ABC (Alfano, Bersani and Casini) was precisely this: to anticipate the move that the Government has in mind to mark a turning point. Yesterday Monti has chosen Berlin, in front of the hawk Schauble, to warn that his government wants to fly high and put in place a fund to which to confer all the public shareholdings, movable and real estate, to be placed on the market. What is the sense of the operation and why should we resume privatization today precisely at a time when the Stock Exchanges are so depressed as to advise against the disposal of public assets? The meaning of the operation is threefold, the methods are innovative and are designed precisely to avoid the sell-off of public goods.
The meaning is that of finally give a blow to the public debt, which is still the third largest public debt in the world and which now exceeds 120% of GDP, but also give a strong signal to the markets that Italy is moving on the path of reforms and change and, finally – but not least – of begin to remove the obstacles and the tangle of special and corporate interests that impede growth reducing the monstrosity of an abnormal public presence that often feeds the short circuit between politics and business.
also the mode of Monti's privatizations are innovative. The prime minister has rightly always recalled that selling public assets today - in the presence of such depressed share prices - risks leading to a sell-off. Sacrosanct, but that doesn't mean standing still. Authoritative economists have been advising for years to collect all public shareholdings in a fund which, in the most convenient times and ways, places shares on the market in order to optimize sales. If the Monti operation takes off, this will finally be the time in which not only will shares of national movable public assets be sold in the most convenient way – think of the Italian Post Office or the State Railways – but also, and especially, the assets of the immense state property bypassing all those laces and snares that until now have often prevented even a disused barracks from being sold.
But there is another aspect of Monti's move which is very important and which represents the most advanced frontier of the strategy of change and discontinuity on which no one has ever really dared to venture. And it is that of transfer – in the right time and manner – of local and municipal shareholdings. The vast nonsense of the League, which has always hidden corporate and local interests in the shadow of an ill-conceived federalism, had so far prevented us from moving along this road, manned by a transversal conservative block that stood and stands in defense of the former municipal companies without look to the general interest.
The local gas, water, electricity and waste utilities are treasure chests and local monopolies that money-hungry municipalities and power-hungry politics have often used as they please. and arbitrariness without thinking about the real interest of the citizens. It is not understood (or, if you like, understood all too well) why the Municipalities control their former municipal companies with Bulgarian majorities even when they are listed on the Stock Exchange. The spectacle of the clash over Acea in Rome these days would be comical if it weren't tragic.
There is only one truth and that is what a scholar of the professor's worth Sabino Cassese revealed years ago when speaking of the deeds and misdeeds of the so-called municipal socialism, mainly represented by local or municipal service companies. It is true that the former municipal companies often supply large dividends to the Municipalities, but what interests the local ras is the political dividend much more than the economic one. Fully controlling a municipal service company means deciding on appointments, occupying seats, guaranteeing orders and contracts, inventing bogus jobs and turning former municipal companies into large cribs at the service of inferior politics and against and without the knowledge of the citizens.
Monti is now trying to dismantle this piece of real socialism which is holding back development and fueling corruption. For this we must root for him and we must hope that honest citizens and the markets understand the revolutionary scope of the operation without letting themselves be enchanted by the false sirens that they will surely find and invent a thousand quibbles to boycott or resize it or even by the scammers who always stare at the finger without seeing the moon. Sometimes, however, the system knows how to take revenge on the pettiness of men and on the short-sighted interests of the parish. And let's hope that this time it's really like this.
