A summer like 2021 will go down in history and we will remember it for a long time. Give it sports ateconomy and on the floor of vaccinations for Italy it is a season to remember.
Who would have guessed that in the Wembley temple the Roberto Mancini's national team beat hosts England to win the European football championships, like it hasn't happened since 1968? And who would have thought that, after only a few weeks, at Tokyo Olympics would we have achieved a record number of medals: 40 in all, 10 of which were gold? Medals are not like stock market shares: they are not only counted but weighed, as the legendary Enrico Cuccia once said. Because a gold medal in the 100m athletics final is not worth one but worth 10.
In short, a truly triumphant summer for the Italy of sport, to which we were no longer used to and which we did not expect. But it's not just a question of sport and perhaps those who argue that sport is much more than it seems and is a metaphor for life are not entirely wrong. That's right. This year's sporting successes are the symbol of the recovery of a country that has suffered a lot from Covid and that in sport crowns the dream of redemption and sees liberation from the nightmare of the pandemic. And indeed the triumphs in sport are the signal that we are by no means an inexorably fallen nation and that another Italy is possible: that of Mario Draghi.
Everything happened so fast that we struggle to realize it but, after one of the toughest recessions, this year Italy is experiencing – incredible to say – the golden age. The latest forecasts say that the growth of the Italian GDP in 2021 will settle at around 6 per cent. These are economic miracle figures that many have never known. To trace growth of the Italian economy at the same level, we need to go back to the end of the 50s, precisely those of the boom and economic miracle after the Second World War, when GDP grew on average – from 1958 to 1963 – by 6,3% per year, sanctioning a record never achieved before and making Italy the European country that grew the most behind only Germany.
How could such a miracle happen without us even noticing it? Mainly for two reasons: for the paradigm shift that has taken place in Europe and which has allowed the European Commission to abandon the austerity policy and the ECB to adopt, ever since Draghi as president, an expansionary monetary policy which has flooded the liquidity system and which paved the way for the Next Generation Eu of which Italy is the largest beneficiary with about 200 billion out of 750 between loans at subsidized rates and non-repayable subsidies of which we will collect the first installment in the next few days. Other than Europa stepmother of which Giorgia Meloni, Matteo Salvini and sometimes the Five Stars have been blathering about. But the second reason for the Italian turnaround is the climate of trust that has spread in our country and in Europe around Draghi government, the most esteemed Italian in the world not only for having saved the euro in 2012 with his famous "Whatever it takes" but for the authority and competence with which he now leads the Government of almost national unity. The rewriting of the Italian plan to access European funds on the basis of well-thought-out investment projects aimed at the ecological transition, digitization and development of infrastructures, but above all the reforms that have been awaited for decades and have finally begun have opened up a new era for our country which promises record growth rates for this year and next year which will continue over time if we know how to raise our growth potential.
However, there is a premise to be made: investments and reforms would not have been enough to reverse the course if we had not first tackled the fight against the pandemic aggressively. Having been the European country hit first by Covid and being an old and therefore more vulnerable country, Italy was among the major victims of the pandemic with a higher percentage of deaths than Germany, France, Spain, England and the United States. But it was also a country that, thanks to the efficiency and determination of the Draghi government, was able to change gears, if it is true that today we have a higher percentage of vaccinated than the major Western countries.
Sporting triumphs therefore, but also economic boom, acceleration of anti-Covid vaccination plans, reforms and Next Generation Eu money starting to arrive from Europe. It is safe to say that today Italy is experiencing a magical summer for which we will always have to thank Mario Draghi and those who wanted it at Palazzo Chigi, that is Sergio Mattarella e Matteo Renzi.
Day after day the prime minister is making us touch another Italy, which we have dreamed of for years and which it would be criminal to destroy. And perhaps, thinking about it, it is no coincidence to note that the new Italy is an Italy dominated by pragmatism and reforms of the premier and less weighted down by populism which has fueled illusions that have melted like snow in the sun and which are finally losing ground under their feet.
But how do you write such an article? But isn't the author ashamed to incense someone like Draghi and Mattarella? Where the hell does he live?