Nationalists and enemies of Europe? No, Italians are not like that. According to Censis, which today published its annual report on the country's social situation, as much as 67% of our compatriots want Italy to remain in the European Union. 10,4% are undecided, while 22,6% are in favor of leaving the EU. In short, it is true that the Italian Constitution prohibits a Brexit-style referendum (laws ratifying international treaties cannot be subjected to abrogation consultations), but, even if it were possible, any "Italiexit" would be rejected by the voters.
Not only. 61,3% of Italians are also against abandoning the euro to return to the lira, while 28,7% are in favor and 10% are unable to answer. And again: 60,4% oppose the closure of the borders, compared with 30,6% who would like the Schengen treaty to be broken and 9% who are undecided.
INSTITUTIONS IN CRISIS, POPULISM IS GROWING
However, this does not mean that Italians are in harmony with their rulers. 89,4% express a negative opinion on politicians, which only 4,1% of the population likes. And there is a debacle for all traditional intermediate subjects: 1,5% of Italians trust banks, 1,6% in political parties and 6,6% in trade unions.
From all this emerges a strong detachment between politics and the people: “The institutions – writes Censis – are no longer able to 'make a hinge' between the political dynamics and the social dynamics, consequently they are heading towards a progressive closure. Of the three components of a modern society (social body, institutions, political power) it is precisely the institutions that are most profoundly in crisis today".
The "unitary substance" that the institutions have exercised since the Risorgimento has disappeared: "Politics proudly reaffirms its planning and decision-making primacy, while the social body reinforces its proud autonomy in 'holding itself up'. They are thus destined for a joint nourishment of populism. It is time for the political world and the social body to courageously give a new role to too mortified institutions".
SAVE ON THE MATTRESS, GRANDKIDS POORER THAN GRANDPARENTS
This situation is the result of a precarious economic framework, dominated by distrust. Compared to the beginning of the crisis in 2007, underlines Censis, Italians have accumulated additional liquidity of 114,3 billion euros, a value higher than the GDP of a country like Hungary. Total liquidity in cash or unrestricted deposits (818,4 billion in the second quarter of 2016) is equal to the value of an economy that would rank fifth in the GDP ranking of post-Brexit EU countries, after Germany, France , Italy itself and Spain.
Furthermore, according to the Report, the economic knockout of young people is evident. Children are poorer than grandparents: compared to the population average, today the families of young people under 35 have a lower income of 15,1% and a lower wealth of 41,1%. Furthermore, compared with twenty-five years ago, today's young people have an income that is 26,5% lower than that of their peers at the time, while for those over 65 it has increased by 24,3%.
61% OF ITALIANS USE WHATSAPP
FACEBOOK SURPASSES NEWSPAPERS AS A SOURCE OF INFORMATION
Other surprising numbers are those concerning the Italians' approach to technology. Between 2007 and 2015, overall household consumption fell by 5,7% in real terms, but in the same period there was a real boom in spending on computers (+41,4%) and smartphones ( +191,6%). In 2016, web users in Italy reached 73,7%. In the case of young people under 30, the figure rises to 95,9%. Today 64,8% of Italians use a smartphone (a figure that rises to 89,4% among young people) and 61,3% use Whatsapp to communicate (against 89,4% of young people), 56,2. 46,8% have a Facebook account and XNUMX% watch Youtube.
As for the relationship with information, in 2011 80,9% of Italians declared that they had acquired information from the news, but in 2016 the figure dropped to 63%. High school graduates, who were the most loyal users of the news, lost 27,3 points, going from 85,7% to 58,4%.
Among the first sources used for information, after the television news is Facebook with 35,5% and radio news with 24,7%, while newspapers do not exceed 18,8%. 19,4% of Italians choose search engines like Google, 10,8% YouTube and 2,9% Twitter.
