In the framework that will determine the succession to the Quirinale it is necessary to keep alive the attention and reflection on country's problems which in any case must be quickly addressed with the organization and implementation especially of the specific interventions envisaged by the Pnrr. These are numerous, all of great importance and complex and lengthy implementation, and the initiation of a profound change in the economic and social structure of the country depends on them for various aspects: energy, environment, digitization, infrastructure, circular economy, capital human, … . The picture begins to take shape, but the journey remains complicated and in many respects undefined. In the context of the complexity of the situation, two questions of primary importance arise, among others: will it be possible to involve and structurally integrate the South in the process of renewal of the national economic and social system that needs to be activated? How convinced are you that the achievement of this objective largely depends on a positive relocation of the entire Italian economy in the European and global context?
It is difficult today to answer these questions and much will depend on how the crowded list of investment programs envisaged by the PNRR will be translated into a country-strategy of cohesion and development capable of tackling the various problems that are manifesting themselves at a territorial level and which do not concern only the South. While waiting for concrete elements to evaluate and understand the responsiveness of the path undertaken with respect to the objectives just indicated, we will focus here on two aspects to be carefully considered.
A) The first refers to the substantial change that has occurred in the country as regards the current situation in terms of territorial inequalities. In this regard we find ourselves today in a situation which leads us to say that the historical southern question she has definitely turned into one national question. In the sense that the deepening of territorial inequalities and the worsening of the level of economic and social cohesion also affects other parts of the country and no longer just the South. All of this has been well clarified by 2021 Report of Svimez who highlighted the critical situation of some regions of Central Italy, speaking of the establishment in that area of a "second noon” and emphasizing that this situation is closely linked to the progressive decline and detachment from Europe recorded for the entire Italian economy during the first twenty years of this century. In terms of per capita GDP, in 1995 the country was 126% of the EU-28 average and reached 95% in 2019. A generalized deterioration which, among other things, has also affected strong areas such as, e.g. Lombardy passed from 14th to 36th place in the EU28, Emilia from 20th to 46th, Piedmont from 35th to 85th.
How can we forget the alarm cry who, taking up these data, launched Giorgio La Malfa in December 2021 in the morning arguing that, consequently, "the national destiny and that of the South are inextricably linked to each other and there is no salvation for one without the other". The point today is exactly this. But in this regard there is a knot to untie with respect to which no signal can be glimpsed. Faced with the great availability of resources to be committed in the South, how do we plan, in the phase of their management, to overcome the current unresolved opposition between a centralized approach, on the one hand, and the decision-making and management power entrusted to the individual territories, by the 'other? To date there is a total lack of one national development vision project able to define, guide and control the implementation of the investments to be made in the various territorial realities to respond to the needs expressed by the living conditions of the respective civil societies.
B) The second aspect on which we want to dwell, concerns the multiplication and progressive intensification, in recent years, of the debates and of the political-economic-social analyzes relating to the specific situation of the South, fully inserted, however, in the national dimension and European. A reflection which, after almost a decade of substantial silence on the South, resumes with large participation (especially of young people) and makes definitive the exit from the perspective that characterized the Southern thinking of past years. In the sense that the theme of cohesion is tackled in the dimension of global interdependence that today the problems of the development of the economy and national society have assumed.
Southern Italy, the analysis of Svimez and Bankitalia
This happened in particular in the period from 2018 to today. In this regard one thinks (certainly with some oversight) of the volumes of Emanuele Felice (Why the South fell behind)by Alfredo Del Monte (South of Italy and the South of the United States), by Antonio Accetturo and Guido De Blasio (Dying of aid. Policy failures for the South -and how to avoid them-); to the work of Astrid coordinated by Giuseppe Coco and Claudio De Vincenti (A National Issue. Southern Italy from problem to opportunity); to the Latest Svimez Reports from 2019 to 2021 (The economy and society of the South); to the debates promoted by Svimez herself and to the numerous ones of the Merita foundation; the analyzes and documentation produced by SRM (Studies and Research for Southern Italy); to the volume by Gianfranco Viesti (Centers and peripheries); to the volume edited by Luca Bianchi and Beniamino Caravita (The PNRR to the test of the South). A substantial material for reflection to which three events (two conferences and a volume of a political-cultural nature) have been added, concentrated in a few weeks at the end of 2021, to which we want to draw attention.
The first of the two conferences, supported by Svimez, is entitled Regional policies, institutions and cohesion in the South from the post-war period to today. It is a Prin (Project of relevant national interest) coordinated by Prof. Flavia Martinelli which involves a significant part of the southern university system (the Universities of Reggio Calabria, Bari, Catania and Naples – Federico II). A project that has involved over 40 researchers, mostly young, in an articulated sectoral analysis of the economic and social policy paradigms implemented in the phase of extraordinary intervention (the Keynesian-Fordist period of the years 1945-90) and in that of the launch of the European cohesion policy (the neo-liberal period, from the 90s ).
Svimez, the results on the territory
The analysis concerned the protagonists of those policies, the favored parts of the economy and society, the intermediation action of the state bourgeoisie, the reflections on the settlement structure and on the urbanization processes, the problems inherent in the unbalanced structure of industry, the role played by industry with state participation, that of tourism, of inland areas. Overall, a thematically articulated analysis, focused on the territory and unified in the recognition of the factors which, unlike in the past, today determine the persistence and worsening of the gap affecting the South:
- The changes in the macroeconomic context relating to the new global competition and the slowdown in the growth of mature countries.
- The weakness of the production structure and the insufficient endowment of infrastructures in the various southern areas.
- The heavy architecture of the cohesion policy which ended up giving the Union and the central State the function of mere distribution of resources.
- The annulment of the redistributive role of the State which has allowed the ruling classes to manage particularistic and clientelistic public spending as a means of channeling consensus.
Bankitalia, the economic gap and businesses
The other conference was promoted by the Bank of Italy and was held at the Rossi-Doria Center of the Roma Tre University, with the title: Southern Italy in the analysis of the Bank of Italy: territorial differences, structural change, firms. Over 30 research works and 4 lines of analysis focused on the last decade:
- The economic structure and businesses.
- The job market.
- The financial system.
- The role of the public sector and contextual factors.
Even the starting point of this impressive work of analysis is in the recognition that "the southern question has become part of a wider national question over time". The general and summary considerations of Dr. Roberto Torrini of the Economic Structure Service of the Bank of Italy highlight, in fact, that the structural problems from which the South suffers are the same, but to a far more intense extent, than those which make Italy "an anomalously advanced country". The analyzes concern the fragmentation of the productive fabric, the weakness of the infrastructural system (in particular: lack of railway communications, stability of the electricity service, waste disposal); low diffusion of digitization; low level of quality of employment; dramatic demographic prospects which predict an extraordinary reduction in the youth population already over the next twenty years (almost 35% less than the class of young people between 18-20 years of age). Finally, to aggravate the situation, the functioning of the public system is indicated which, in the South in particular, is characterized by an incompetent regionalism to use scarce resources for development purposes and for many aspects heavily polluted.
All of these are not new. But the commitment that an institution such as the Bank of Italy makes in the current phase of the country to build a complete picture of the situation in the South and to indicate the points on which action must be taken has great significance.
A new phase of national unity
The third event that we want to point out here concerns the publication last November of a volume by two well-known Italian scholars who, with a political-cultural slant, recount their journey in the South of today: A Prophecy for Italy. Back to the South by Ernesto Galli della Loggia and Aldo Schiavone. A very beautiful book, full of cultural, political and historical suggestions and which deserves a lot of space to be fully reviewed. Galli della Loggia and Schiavone also feel the need to break the silence which has prevailed over the South and which, in their opinion, has been recorded since the beginning of the new century. For them too"Today it is not a question of finding ways to integrate the South into the rest of the Peninsula, … . It is a question of completely remaking the country …”… “Italy must be rethought and in a certain sense rebuilt in relation to Europe”. The two return to Naples, Calabria, Bari, Matera, Sicily, Sardinia. They grasp the problems but also the new impulses that grow in these places by meeting various, more or less well-known characters, professors, politicians, mayors, entrepreneurs. They come, finally to prophesy"the opening of the season of a new phase of national unity, the objective of which is the real reunification of the country, its strategic relocation in the geopolitical chessboard and the effective construction of a single citizenship for all Italians. … Knowing that Italy counts in Europe only if the Mediterranean counts”.
To conclude. After years of silence, a phase has certainly opened which highlights, through the multiplication of interventions and analyzes of a socio-political-economic nature, a new attention to the gap which has historically affected the South of the country. With an analytical approach free from the conceptual cage built by classic southernism and fully inserted in the dimension of global interdependence that characterizes contemporary economic development. They are involved in this renewal process universities, professors, young researchers from various disciplines, important public institutions. Together they put the pieces to build a complete picture of the past, to identify the lines to follow, mistakes to avoid, obstacles to overcome. A precious heritage of knowledge. A sign that there are forces and intelligences that can help reorganize the whole countrye.
