With the extreme capacity for synthesis and the ease of a keen observer, the former director of the Economist, Bill Emmott, sent an open letter to Pierluigi Bersani immediately after the victory achieved in the primaries of the centre-left.
In a series of questions, Emmott urged the Democratic Secretary to indicate what he believed to be the main issues to be addressed in order to pull the country out of the quagmire of a by now outdated financial crisis - but still just around the corner - and above all to reverse the Italian economic history of the last decade, made up of low growth and high debt, which has characterized executives of all colors.
More than a month later, Emmott laments the lack of response from the progressive candidate in an editorial published by La Stampa.
Why has Italy grown less than other European countries in the last twenty years? How are jobs created in a modern, open, globalized, capitalist matrix economy? Are there obstacles to such an economic model in Italy that the Democratic Party intends to remove? What is the reason for the exodus of talent from Italy? Does the centre-left recognize the failure of the welfare economic policy, the complicity of the left itself in the debasement of merit and in the politicization of institutions? Why are Italian universities considered, at an international level, third- or fourth-rate centres? Assuming Berlusconi's faults over the past twenty years, the Democratic Party recognizes the responsibility of the left for having blocked reforms, both for its inability to pass a law on conflict of interest and for local complicity with the mafia ?
To Bersani's silence, Emmott associates the perplexities that are beginning to arise from abroad on the Italy case. A bit like for Sergio Marchionne, praised abroad as detested at home, the world elites do not understand the Italian reluctance to a Monti-bis.
Investors today no longer remain on the sidelines: they return to Italian debt because they are attracted by an excellent compromise between risk and return. But if the rising populism of the "de facto" Berlusconi-Maroni-Grillo axis were to prove truly competitive, a sharp rise in the spread would not surprise anyone. So why don't the Italians run for cover? Because they are not sufficiently informed - Emmott argues between the lines -, because the center-left itself is more inclined to pursue short-term electoral logics than to expose the true picture of the country. A strategy that short-circuits the global nature of the crisis and does not indicate the way forward.
That in a democracy the winner governs - notes Emmott - is sacrosanct. But whoever wins also has the responsibility to speak the "language of truth", to present credible analyzes and show the will to broaden the political spectrum and the social forces of reference after the vote to launch "structural" reforms. One cannot therefore be surprised that a “left-leaning” Democratic Party, unbalanced on the Vendola-Fassina axis, worries foreign chancelleries and institutional investors from all over the world: substantially, a large part of global financial stability also depends on Italian fiscal policy.
“This concern must certainly have been somewhat mitigated by the interview given by Stefano Fassina to the Financial Times on January 13th. It seemed to confirm that a Bersani administration would be more centrist than left-wing, in favor of the European fiscal pact and intent on opening up the market for insurance, pharmacies and legal services”. Good news, according to Emmott, but that's not enough: evidently the Democratic Party is being blamed for having little resolution in cutting public spending, the only viable way to permanently and structurally reduce taxation on households and businesses.
For now, the electoral strategy requires "building loyalty" with the electorate of reference, but from abroad they also notice the signs of a thaw between Monti and Bersani. And Fassina himself yesterday anticipated to the London newspaper that the centre-left coalition will try to "find an agreement between unions and companies to freeze wages in exchange for investments".
However, a shadow remains, according to Emmott, over the prospects for the next government and for Bersani himself, at least until the questions are given the answers that the Italians deserve. But perhaps we should remember that the right questions, unfortunately, are often not asked, as the recent televised sorties of premier candidates amply demonstrate.
