After the cuts in public spending, the ribbon cutting. Prime Minister Mario Monti inaugurated the Vodafone Village in Milan on Saturday 16 June, center of excellence of the first European telecommunications company built in just over three years in the former abandoned industrial area of via Lorenteggio, which will house the 3 Vodafone employees of the Lombard capital in one eco-technological space of a total of 100 thousand square meters, cost 300 million euros.
After officially inaugurating the village, in the presence of the CEO of the global Vodafone group, Vittorio Colao, and the CEO of Vodafone Italia Paolo Bertoluzzo, the prime minister took stock of the general economic situation, following the important measures taken in Development decree approved yesterday. That the first steps of phase 2 of the government mission, dedicated to growth, have been defined, improperly according to Monti: "There is no second phase, and we didn't start dealing with growth yesterday – the premier specified -: we worked for growth also in securing public finances, and also, in the first months of our mandate, despite some harsh and unpleasant fiscal measures, when we never lost sight of the need for competitiveness . As for example with the decree for liberalisations”.
So why wait until now for the spending review? “It is true that divestments of public assets could have been done earlier, but we would have given the wrong signal to the markets. The real point on which we were and are called to test is that of the will to change permanently, on large flows and also on social customs, for example in the fight against tax evasion. And then, public assets: large companies are now few, and quite devalued by current market prices. It's inappropriate to sell them now."
In fact, the crisis is not yet behind us. And it will hardly be in the short term: “Growth takes a long, long time. I think it's even wrong to say that we breathe more today than we did a few months ago. Actually thanks to the sacrifices of all we have moved from the edge of the precipice, but it is the crater of the precipice that has widened dangerously. And this will happen until Europe is able to give itself a new governance”.
A Europe to which however also great merits go, starting with the great success of the Vodafone group, which has its second most important country in the world in the Boot, and which today is inaugurating a center of absolutely cutting-edge technology. “Vodafone – proudly recalled the Italian CEO Vittorio Colao – it is the fifth largest company on the continent, the first in telecommunications, and the third in telecommunications worldwide. Italy is the second most important country in our business, above all as a factory of ideas and innovation”.
“All of this, however – added Colao – would not have been possible without Europe and its competitive market”. A perfect assist for Mario Monti, who in the very years in which the old Omnitel, born from a branch of Olivetti, completed the transition into the English group, was the European Commissioner for Competition. After paying homage to "Adriano Olivetti, who was among the first to understand the importance of the working environment and the enhancement of human capital", the premier also recalled the merits of Europe: "Just in a moment difficult as this for the continent, in which doubts and worries are nurtured, the Treaty of Lisbon should be kept in mind, which reads as follows: 'The EU aspires to be a highly competitive social market economy'. Here, this spirit is perfectly embodied by Vodafone, which thanks to the rules and the supervision of the Commission on the opening up of the telecommunications market, has become its leader. Without Europe, there would have been no Vodafone”.
And neither is Vodafone Village. “Milan's new jewel”, defined it by mayor Giuliano Pisapia, present at the inauguration. Built in record time and for a considerable amount (Vodafone is the first investor with foreign capital in Italy, where it allocates one billion euros every year), the center of excellence presents particularly innovative technological aspects. From the trigeneration plant which makes the complex energetically independent by transforming heat and cold, to the photovoltaic system installed on all the windows of the offices, up to the photocatalytic cement, which absorbs smog and dissolves it with rain.
Not to mention all the comforts for workers: relaxation area, park, kindergarten, learning center, restaurants and shops. "It would be nice - concluded Monti before cutting the ribbon - that all Italian employees could one day work in conditions like this".
