We have been witnessing one for some time resumption of the debate on Southern Italy e to the attempt to give a new reading of the historical southern problem by looking at South in a national and European key. A decisive boost has come from the radical change that has taken place at the EU level, aimed at guiding theemerging from the epochal crisis generated by the pandemic towards an innovative development path outlined in a context of stronger European integration. To understand how the government will respond to this push and the opportunities it has created, we are still awaiting the projects and the governance design that will need to be prepared to access the use of substantial European funds. Meanwhile, in this period, among various other subjects, in particular Svimez, the Astrid Foundation, the Merita Association, the SRM Study Center connected to Intesa San Paolo, are contributing to the reflection and proposal with documents and debates. The latter have always been attended by members of the Government who limited themselves to listing shared needs but never entered into the merits of the projects in preparation, jealously guarded in the rooms of Palazzo Chigi. Here we intend to reason on the question by broadly returning to two very recent contributions. The 2020 Svimez Report and the document presented by the SRM Center together with Aspen.
THE SVIMEZ REPORT 2020
Svimez's 2020 Report is, as usual, very weighty (over 700 pages). There are three main points of interest to be highlighted here.
The first concerns the starting point: the Italian economy has encountered the blows of the Covid-19 pandemic in extremely critical conditions. In two decades, between 2000 and 2019, in fact, the Italian GDP increased at constant values by only 3.7 points, causing a retreat with respect to the European context that has united the entire country. In the same period, all the Italian regions fell very low in the European ranking defined on the basis of per capita GDP. Lombardy, for example, which was in 17th place moved to 44th, Emilia from 25th to 55th, Piedmont from 40th to 97th, Campania from 194th to 241st, Calabria from 212th to 252nd. This has also produced an enlargement of the perimeter of the Italian regions benefiting from the European cohesion policies, with the linking of Umbria and Marche to the latter and even a very dangerous rapprochement of Piedmont, Tuscany and Friuli (down from 130% of the EU average of 2000 to 103% in 2018). It is the whole country, therefore, that must reverse the process of decline, setting itself an objective of cohesion that no longer concerns only the South.
The second aspect to underline concerns the broad and articulated analysis dedicated to persistent characteristics of fragility of the southern social and economic fabric. The analysis ranges from changes in the business system and in the labor market to the conditions of the Public Administration, from citizenship gaps to shortcomings in school and university education, from demographic aging to the condition of women, from changes in economic geography to the weight of illegal economy, from EU industrial policies to delays in the use of European funds. These are problems repeatedly investigated in past Reports, but in the 2020 one the analysis highlights the sharp worsening of the critical issues triggered by the pandemic and their potential to become the cause of unmanageable social tensions. Women, Youth and Training are therefore indicated by the Report as central themes for launching the recovery. The analysis reports absolutely impressive data on these aspects. As an example, think of the 171 female employment places lost in just one quarter of the pandemic (more than double the 89 created in the previous eleven years). A catastrophe that is added to the lower wages, the higher level of precariousness, the massive and progressive estrangement from the most qualified professions. Or you think that, opposite a youth employment rate that reached 27,1% (half of the European one), in the same quarter a good 331 young people were expelled from the labor market. Not to mention the persistence of very low levels of spending on education or the lower commitment to skills training.
The third aspect of reflection provided by Svimez's analysis is the underlining that the country's recovery, to be adequate, must be based on a project of “reconstruction capable of combining national growth and territorial cohesion“. Therefore, coordination between ordinary policy, traditional cohesion policy and Next Generation EU is necessary. A national policy which in the southern area responds to two priorities: 1) an investment plan in social infrastructure to activate the rebalancing in access to citizenship rights: health, education, mobility and 2) the setting of an industrial policy that has as objectives:
- a) the launch of a Euro-Mediterranean strategy based on the infrastructure of the southern SEZ quadrilateral extended to Sicily;
- b) the enhancement of the supply chains (in particular the agri-food sector) and support for the digital transition and al green deal. On this basis, according to Svimez, the potential of the South is important and the contribution that could come from it to the recovery of the country could be of all importance.
THE RSM-ASPEN REPORT
The document presented by RSM-Aspen (Resilience and development in Southern Italy, sectors, areas and perspectives) and much more light compared to that of Svimez and is characterized by two aspects: a) a predominantly "optimistic" reading of the conditions of the South and, consequently, b) the adoption of an approach based on existing potential to define the recovery path.
In the first place, therefore, we start from the statement that "the South does not exist ..., it is not an industrial desert ..., it is a very polarized uneven territory, great excellences and severe development delays", with the real weaknesses represented by the inefficiency of the PA and low productivity. And it goes on to point out that, if it were an autonomous European state, the South would be in 12th place (between Belgium and Austria) by value of GDP and 8th by number of manufacturing enterprises. It also underlines the potential to establish itself as important Mediterranean logistics hub, the strong presence in the maritime economy and in energy traffic, the performance in the production of new energy (95% for wind, 40,5% for solar), the potential for the production of hydrogen.
Secondly, consequently, the SRM-Aspen document sees the possibility of starting an integrated growth path well founded on the most dynamic production pre-existences. And therefore, it indicates as a priority the assignment of a central function to the South within the context of a Euro-Mediterranean strategy: the Mezzogiorno, a European bridge over the Mediterranean. In this direction, the existing system of ports must be strengthened with infrastructural investments, enabling it to develop an intense network of maritime economy and, above all, the role of the area as a landing point for new corridors of energy flows must be enhanced originating from North Africa. Added to this is the need to increase integration with the rest of the national production system through the existing long supply chains, also with the contribution of national players, support for the production of new energies, the Bioeconomy and Green economy, and with attention to the construction of a Tourism-Culture-Environment triangle. The SRM-Aspen Report, in essence, is built, with an effective narrative, in a vision very focused on the Euro-Mediterranean dimension.
NEXT GENERATIONEU
To conclude. The Next Generation EU and the impressive total amount of resources allocated by Europe have stimulated an intense debate in the world of culture, politics and skills. As can be seen from the two examples commented on and from those just mentioned, there is also a discussion, with an innovative spirit, on what it means today and what the Mezzogiorno represents and how much it can participate - inserted in the national and European context - in the process of new development that is starting on a global scale. Proposals based on different lines of intervention are obviously emerging, with priorities that are sometimes reconcilable at other times conflicting, an expression of different interests and visions of development and its driving forces. A very positive context for participation. Well, while this is happening, it turns out that everything has already been decided. The government, it is said, in total solitude and still without any confrontation, has produced as many as 60 projects, has designed a restricted and centralized management architecture that belongs to the Premier, has foreseen a group of 6 technicians who supervise the implementation of the projects through 6 teams of 15 technicians each. We will know everything in the next few days. And there will be a lot of discussion.
