In a crowded room, absent the minister for the South, who had instead participated in the previous sessions, the "Anticipations of the Svimez report 2019 on the economy and society of the South”. The president Adriano Giannola and the director Luca Bianchi have launched a very concerned alarm message to the political world and to those directly responsible for the government. Referring to the policies for growth needed today, they stated that it is now the last call to face a situation that has become of structural negative impact for the whole country.
Before going into the merits of this year's “anticipations” it is interesting to recall the change of tone that has progressively characterized similar presentations over the past four years. The document for 2016 was entitled "From the restart to the recovery of development". For 2017 it was argued that "The recovery is consolidating but the social emergency remains". For 2018, "The economy and society of the South in the season of uncertainty" was placed. This year the event is titled: “The Specter of Recession in the South”.
In other words, we have come out of an attitude of hopeful uncertainty and valorisation of the positive signals shown by the southern economy in the last three years and it was noted that the situation is now falling decidedly downwards: the growth rate for 2018 fell to +0.6% while for 2019 it is expected - 0.3% (+1.0 and +0.3%, respectively, in the Centre-North). The Italian Mezzogiorno it is growing less than Greece and is accentuating the gap with the rest of the country and the EU. But, mind you, the Centre-North is not sailing at full speed, on the contrary, in the last four years it has shown that on its own it is capable of growing at a much lower rate than the EU average (+5.1% against +9.1%) .
Apart from the reflections of the current global situation, that is, its economy cannot count as in the past on the contribution of internal demand from the South. The weakness of the latter, on the other hand, does not depend only on the more low growth rate of final consumption of southern households (4.4% against 6.2% in the Centre-North in 2015-2018) but, above all, by the decrease in final consumption expenditure by public administrations: in the South this amounted to -2.3% in the last four years, against a increase of +1.5% in the Center and North.
It is not true, today, that there is more public spending in the South than in the Centre-North. In fact, it should be taken into account that investments in public works in 1970 were equal to 677 euros per capita in the South and 452 in the Centre-North, while they dropped in 2018 to 102 and 278 respectively! Against this, it should be emphasized that private investments remain a dynamic component of domestic demand in the South (+9.6% in 2015-18), despite the worrying slowdown, almost to zero, of those for machinery and equipment in 2018 (+0.1% ); effect of the weakening of the interventions connected to Industry 4.0.
The macroeconomic picture thus outlined it gets even worse, if possible, through the reading of trends and data on employment, migration and the state of the most important social infrastructures that characterize the South today.
As for employment, since mid-2018 there has been a drop of 107 thousand units (in the Center and North +48) and there are still 265 jobs below 2008. Permanent contracts are decreasing and fixed-term contracts and involuntary part-time contracts are increasing. The female employment rate is 35.4% against 62.7% in the Centre-North and 67.4% in the EU 28. The employment gap is also measured by applying to the southern population the employment rate differential with respect to the Centre-North , is estimated at nearly 3 million, half of which would be highly skilled workers.
For what concern migration phenomenon, few data summarize the situation: in the last 15 years 2 million southerners have emigrated and the net balance, considering returns, is equal to -852 thousand units, of which 612 thousand are young people under 35 and 240 thousand are university graduates. Therefore, there is a decrease in the young and skilled population which is not, in any case, compensated by the flows of regular immigrants, who remain much lower and characterized by low qualifications. On this level, therefore, a truly devastating prospect is preparing for the South in terms of population loss, human capital deficit and desertification of the territories, especially the internal ones.
Finally, alongside all this, they are taken into consideration the condition of social infrastructure. In this regard, the picture that emerges, albeit synthetic, reveals an absolutely unsustainable gap between the South and the Centre-North in the level of services that should guarantee the citizenship rights of the southern population. And this, without going into the merits of the many negative data, concerns, as is well known: schools, hospitals, health centers, nursery schools, mobility, and so on.
To conclude. As we said at the beginning, underscoring the seriousness of the situation, the Svimez managers intended to address the government and the entire national political class with a last call to deal responsibly with the problems of the South. An acknowledgment is absolutely necessary of the dramatic nature of the situation and its danger to the entire economic and social system. We can no longer wait. As Svimez has demonstrated in recent years, vital businesses, talents, natural resources are not lacking in the South. It is necessary to support – as had begun to be done, albeit insufficiently – and consolidate continuously the signs of a possible recovery of the southern economy.
It is not possible to think of separate solutions, the structural recovery of this area must be started within an organic program of interventions in a strategy with a national and European dimension. The themes are those that involve the entire economic and social system of the country and its location in Europe: innovation, formation of human capital, social and environmental infrastructure, competitiveness in global value chains, Mediterranean perspective. All of this comes before basic income e it is not compatible with the separatist design of differentiated autonomy.
