Former mayor Borghini: "Milan will rise again, because it knows how to change"

“There is a lot to learn from what has happened in recent months, but the baby must not be thrown out with the bathwater. Milan will rise again, because it knows how to change. Unlike Italy, Milan is reformist”. The words expressed on FIRSTonline by a character who the Lombard capital knows him well: Piero Borghini, from Brescia by birth but Milanese by adoption (and twin brother of Gianfranco, former Minister of Industry of the PCI at the time of Berlinguer), he was also its mayor, for two years, in full Tangentopoli. “I became mayor almost by chance – he recalls – and after two weeks they arrested Mario Chiesa. But even from that wound, like from those of terrorism and the industrial crisis at the end of the 70s, the city was able to be reborn, becoming what it is today”. Borghini, a long militancy in the PCI before joining the PSI just when he became mayor of Milan, retraces the last half-century of history of what has been defined as the moral capital of the country with an open heart and analyzes the post-Covid restart: “Milan was ugly because it was a caterpillar, now it's a butterfly. It is a city that learns its lessons and knows how to shed its skin”.

However, Milan and Lombardy have not come out very well in recent months: how did the debacle on the management of the health emergency be explained?

“In the meantime, for me it was not a debacle. An impressive tsunami has arrived, unforeseen and perhaps unpredictable. But I would say that fortunately it has arrived in Lombardy, where there is a robust health system, and not in other Regions ”.

Yet it is precisely the Lombard model that has ended up in the eye of the storm, from private healthcare to RSA.

“The system has shown great limitations, but also resistance. I don't have such a negative view. It is true that many things have not worked and that the responsibilities will have to be ascertained, assuming and not granting that they are all of a local nature. For example, the Government is also involved in the lack of red zone in the province of Bergamo. But in the end Lombardy held up, even if it is undeniable that its ruling class is to blame: Mayor Beppe Sala could not do more because health care is not his responsibility, while I respect Attilio Fontana, but he found himself facing something bigger than him. The crisis of the healthcare model starts from the previous mandate: it was Roberto Maroni who changed course, neglecting the basic territorial network ".

What do you think instead of what happened in the RSA, in particular at the Pio Albergo Trivulzio, which returned to the headlines after having been under your mandate, in 1992?

“The Pio Albergo Trivulzio is an excellence. We are the only country in the world where there are class actions against facilities for the elderly. The only country in the world where the judiciary is dealing with these things. I say that responsibilities must be ascertained, but without hunting for scapegoats. Not everything goes to waste. The PAT was portrayed as a concentration camp, but what happened there happened in structures all over the world”.

So what is the lesson to be learned?

“We need a great reflection, but at a national level. We need to strengthen public hospitals and the presence of general practitioners in the area, through large public investments: for this too, I say that the funds from the Mes must be accepted and used. With the awareness, however, that not everything is to be thrown away. And then let me add one thing."

You're welcome.

“In recent months, the generation that saw Milan reborn in recent decades has abandoned us. We need to make a monument to all the people who have left us, and in my opinion the best monument would be a new National Health Service. In their memory".

Speaking of public investments, what do you think of the States General convened by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte?

“I don't count on it much. They would make sense if the Government had something important to communicate. But in this way they will be a catwalk”.

Returning to Milan: beyond healthcare, what will the city need to relaunch itself?

“The city is very shaken. When you fly high, falling hurts more. Let's remember that before Covid we had reached the point that Milan had a different rating on the markets, and obviously better, than the Italian one. I love Milan because I've seen it suffer: I was mayor during Tangentopoli and even on that occasion it was able to react and be reborn. In my opinion, this time to get out of the crisis he will have to resize the large real estate investments that have characterized the last few years and focus more on the knowledge economy: hospitals, universities, innovation”.

The first thing you would do if you were mayor now?

“I will also talk about it to Sala, whom I respect: a great plan for the school. Rebuilding it from scratch would cost 100 million, an important investment but one that I would consider a priority sign for the future. Then I would talk to the Region for basic healthcare, and finally I would prepare a social housing program, but at a metropolitan, not a city level".

So you are a proponent of Greater Milan?

"Absolutely. Milan must become a large metropolitan city, not only on paper but precisely at the level of governance. 1/5 of the national GDP is produced in the enlarged area around Milan”.

Don't you think that Milan's international vocation will make it more difficult for you to get out of the crisis, which is also linked to the recovery of the global economy?

“The risk is there. Milan is open by its vocation, it has a long mercantile tradition. Then over time it has been able to diversify, for example surviving the industrial crisis and becoming the capital of the tertiary sector. A great international reputation has been built and this must absolutely be maintained, even if I believe that globalization itself needs to be rethought a bit. We are moving from a legitimate market economy to a market society, which is instead dangerous: we must understand that there are social areas in which the market should count for nothing, such as education and health care”.

What do you think instead of the anti-Milanese and anti-Lombard sentiment that is emerging in the rest of Italy?

“Envy is a typical feeling of Italians. Somewhere there has been a certain complacency over Milan's misfortunes, but I tell these people to wait and laugh at Lombardy: in the first place, because Milan will be great again, and then because if Lombardy sinks, the Italy. So there is little to be happy about”.

Milan has gone through various phases and, as you say, has often changed its face. There was the economic boom, the "Milan to drink", the post-Tangentopoli and then the years of the euphoria of the Expo. On balance, in your opinion what was the golden age of Milan?

“The post-war period, for two reasons. Because in those years the city became an industrial capital and then for the culture of hospitality. The Milan opening model is a virtuous case unsurpassed to date. It opened its doors to tens of thousands of people from the rest of Italy, including them. Let's remember that the signs "Do not rent to southerners" weren't Milanese stuff, but if anything Turinese. However, the later stages were also memorable. In the mid-70s, the city lost 160.000 manufacturing jobs, but it didn't mourn. It didn't become the Italian Manchester, it didn't turn into a factory cemetery. It restarted with momentum becoming the capital of the advanced tertiary sector. Today we say "Milan to drink" to be ironic, but after all that period was heroic: it also marked the rebirth from the years of terrorism, from Piazza Fontana. The 80s were a period of extraordinary political and social commitment”.