“The spread was at 574 basis points and the newspapers were full of apprehensive articles on the eurozone crisis, I was in Berlin for a conference”. That is how Mario Monti remembers November 9, 2011 when the head of state Giorgio Napolitano called him to inform him of the appointment a Senator for life. That gesture was the first step towards the so-called "government of technicians". The senator for life had the opportunity to review his government experience thanks to a meeting organized by the Luiss School of Government in Rome.
During the meeting “The Monti government four years later: what is the relationship between technicians and politics?”, six ministers of the caretaker government and the former prime minister recounted their experience within the Monti executive, essentially claiming the importance of those 529 days of government for Italy's economic rescue.
Present at the meeting Renato Balduzzi, Minister of Health in the Monti government, Fabrizio Barca, former Minister for Territorial Cohesion, Giampaolo di Paola, then Minister of Defence, Elsa Fornero, Minister of Labour, Enzo Moavero Milanesi designated for European affairs e Paola Severino, former justice minister.
Mario Monti reflects on his work and "on the possibility of doing politics without having to pass the bottlenecks of a political party". The dramatic economic situation, the Berlusconi government torn apart by internal strife, the trust of the European institutions and the markets at historic lows and the total political stalemate made the intervention of the technicians necessary. "We needed someone - explains Monti - who had gained experience in government other than the national one who would try to form a government and put the necessary reforms into practice".
Politics, for the senator for life, "was unable to propose a solution" to avoid "Italy's financial explosion". When the Monti government was formed, the probability of Italy's default – he recalls – was around 40%.
Criticizing the press and politicians who have accused him of submitting to the will of the Troika, Monti recalls that "Italy was the only southern European country not to have asked for financial aid from the Troika”. On that occasion "we ran a big risk, but in the end Italy saved itself". Monti explains that if he had asked for economic help from the Troika, for the following years, any government would have had "a lowered gaze" in Europe and hatred towards the European institutions would have further grown among public opinion.
Monti says he has also tried to involve politicians in his government, but no one in the centre-right or centre-left wanted to participate, aware of the "unpopular measures" to be approved. "I don't know if we have been involved in politics or not - confesses Monti - and I don't know if there are "technicians of seriousness", but I know that being released from electoral interests has benefited our government action".
Present at the meeting, albeit in connection from the United States, was the Minister of Labor Elsa Fornero, one of the most discussed and criticized ministers of the government experience of the senator for life. Monti vigorously defends Fornero's pension reform judging "uncivilized and unworthy the treatment that many in the country have reserved and continue to reserve for her. If I had to point you to one person who with her decisions has allowed Italy not to be Greece, it is Professor Fornero”.
Fornero herself recalls the experience of the Monti government with "pain and suffering". The former Minister of Labor underlines the “great distance between being an expert in something and having to make decisions that change people's daily lives, their life plans. They are two very different things that I personally experienced in a difficult way, but for me it was an extremely important life experience”.
The most difficult part of the Minister of Labor's task was "the relationship with public opinion, we didn't have the connection between the Minister and the workers, the associations, the territory because politics cynically didn't want to bridge us." But, despite the lack of communication between the Ministry and public opinion, the Minister reiterates the importance of the reform of the labor market. “A good labor market reform that had two objectives that today appear in all labor documents that are inclusion and dynamism, now recognized by all".
Significant reflection also that of Fabrizio Barca which briefly summarizes the reasons that led to the Mario Monti government. Barca refers to the document that the Berlusconi government writes and sends to Europe in October 2011 containing fundamental reforms for the country. "That document - explains Barca - contains 60-70% of what we did in the initial phase, that is, there is a political mandate from a political government, at that time, weakened by a dramatic situation".
Europe had no faith in the Berlusconi government, he didn't think he would do those things written in the document, such as the pension commitment. And so "we are looking for a figure who had such legitimacy in Europe that he could give the certainty that the necessary things were really being done".
At the table of the Luiss School of Government also sat the Minister of Justice Paola Severino which tells of the complex relationship between justice and the economy. “Good justice favors a good economy” it is on this assumption that Prime Minister Monti and Minister Severino arrived and from which all the government's choices arose such as the one on the "company tribunal which is giving extraordinary results" and the "judicial geography, a very difficult choice that no politician could have made . A politician has local interests that he must legitimately cultivate, we didn't have this constraint".
