right-wing Keynesianism in Italy?

Citizen Silvio's past is not so interesting anymore - the real future clash
with the central bankers in Frankfurt might loom ahead, when he will push
through his program of right-wing Keynesianism. Gianni Agnelli of Fiat is
right when he said recently, Italy is not a Banana republic. So, the
beginning clash between the European North and South over Maastricht?
Perhaps yes, hopefully also for the political left in the end.

What days are these; the PDS in coalition with the other left wing parties
in Italy fighting to the bitter end for Maastricht, losing Bologna and other
strongholds already time ago, while Berlusconi re-discovering the truths of
John Maynard Keynes?

Something of this sort was predicted by people like Kurt Rothschild and
other critics of Maastricht years ago, but the left in Europe, so fascinated
by austerity and balanced budgets, forgot these warnings.

Enjoy the two articles included

Ciao

Arno Tausch
My humble private opinion.

10Mai2001 UK: Comment & Analysis - Analysis - Right-in-waiting - If Silvio
Berlusconi is the victor in this Sunday's ... The Guardian, 10 May 2001
By David Walker.
Comment & Analysis - Analysis - Right-in-waiting - If Silvio Berlusconi is
the victor in this Sunday's Italian election, it could herald the start of a
'modernised' conservative revival across Europe.

Foreign newspapers have not been the only outsiders to take an active part
in the forthcoming Italian elections. Helmut Kohl, grand old (if
discredited) man of the European centre-right, this week pronounced Silvio
Berlusconi "one of us". What he meant, formally, was that Mr Berlusconi's
party, Forza Italia, is a member in good standing of the European people's
party, which collects the right together in the European parliament. The
subtext was also clear: a victory this coming Sunday for the right in Italy
matters symbol ically elsewhere in Europe. For left as well as right.
Italy is a special case, they were saying in the corridors at this week's
meeting of the European party of socialists (president Robin Cook) in
Berlin. But what if it is not? A victory for Forza Italia could well signal
the end of progressive domination of the champions' league (the analogy was
coined by Enrique Baron Crespo, the Spanish socialist who heads the left
block in the European parliament). And so far there is not much to show for
it.
Four years ago Tony Blair's victory matched the triumph of the socialists in
the French national assembly elections then, a year later, Gerhard
Schroder's ended the Kohl era. Labour stood out thanks to a huge majority
delivered by our first-past-the-post system. In proportional France, Lionel
Jospin, like Giuliano Amato in Italy and Wim Kok in the Netherlands, governs
by coalition. Mr Schroder has to negotiate with the centre-right majority in
Germany's upper house, the Bundesrat.
The "third way" tag was mocked for its vagueness and Tony Blair, despite his
bon ton, has never been Mr Jospin's soul brother. Yet what the French call
left realism has turned out to have much in common with government as
practised in Copenhagen, Berlin and London. Socialism - the transformation
of capitalism - is dead all over. Paris postures but liberal nostrums hold
sway in approaches to trade and profit seeking enterprise. The centre-left's
calling card has been keeping the welfare state running alongside
globalisation.
Labour thinks of itself as revisionist but it is Mr Schroder legislating for
private pensions; the growth in private shareholding in Germany in the past
couple of years has been dramatic. (But Germany's public provision remains
bigger than the UK's.) Everyone agreed on basic housekeeping, too - cutting
government borrowing and controlling spending. Since the left has been in
power in Italy, the country's budget deficit has been cut by 7.5% of GDP.
Budget discipline was enforced by the Maastricht criteria for joining the
single currency; social democratic governments in Paris and Berlin have
found it handy to use Brussels to check the comrades' free-spending habits.
Unemployment has fallen across Europe, though as the chart shows nearly one
in 10 are still jobless in Italy and France. The picture has dark patches.
In Germany nearly a third of the unemployed have been out of a job for more
than a year; nearly 16% of French people under 25 are jobless. Perhaps the
left has merely been a beneficiary of economic circumstance. French analysts
say the strong rates of job creation in France are only marginally related
to government mea sures. Mr Schroder has pinned his political fortune on
pushing the jobless total lower during his term of office so news of a
slight increase in seasonally adjusted unemployment is bad.
The European left faces a string of elections during the next 15 months. If
the eurozone economy holds up, social democracy should hold on in France and
Germany. But among the centre-left's failures must be counted Europe itself.
It has not sought to popularise European economic and security integration
as a necessary antidote to American-dominated movements in trade and
defence. The left has opted, as was seen again in Berlin this week, for
legalism - insisting, say, on incorporating a charter of fundamental rights.
The UK government prefers a non-binding "declaration", because it fears
domestic aggravation. A better objection is that the left tends to want the
European Union to do its dirty work for it. Instead of building outwards
towards Brussels on the back of progressive sentiment at home, the
temptation is to load Brussels with unrealisable responsibilities.
In power, the left has proven empiricist on such difficult questions as
asylum seeking. The Danish government led by Paul Nyrup (leading a
centre-left minority administration) took a hard line. It may be punished in
the forthcoming elections because in Denmark, unlike the UK, there is a
middle-class conscience vote willing to go elsewhere.
Another failure of what may turn out to be a temporary period of left
dominance is being shown in our election. It is (to use Tony Blair's phrase)
about lodging the left's residual political identity in the hearts and minds
of the populace. What does it stand for? On assuming the presidency of the
party of European socialists on Tuesday, Robin Cook held four principles
aloft: anti-racism, job creation, EU enlargement and regional stability. But
Berlin saw disagreements over the pace of enlargement. What ought "regional
stability" to mean for relations with the United States? Judging by recent
noises from Berlin Paris and London, the European left speaks with many and
muddled tongues.
Perhaps, in retrospect, the left's ascendancy was just a manifestation of
the disarray of the right. When it gets its act together, in Spain as now in
Italy, people are willing to opt for modernised conservative parties
promising the same kind of technical efficiency as the left, plus such
sweeteners as tax cuts.
david.walker@guardian.co.uk. 


13Mai2001 ITALY: Italians look like voting in Berlusconi tomorrow. The Irish
Times
Is Silvio Berlusconi, the man poised to become prime minister of Italy
despite being the subject of corruption allegations, a threat to democracy
or a product of the Italian version of it? Paddy Agnew reports from Rome

One face, one name and one controversial track record cast an awesome shadow
over tomorrow's Italian general election. More than 49 million people will
be called to elect not only 945 senators and deputies, but also the mayors
of some of Italy's most important cities.
That name and that face, of course, belong to centre-right opposition leader
Silvio Berlusconi, the man widely expected to emerge from tomorrow's vote as
prime minister of Italy's 59th post-war government. Even though issues such
as unemployment, taxation, immigration, crime, pensions, reform of the
judiciary, federalism and education all feature prominently in the similar
programmes of the two major coalitions, the moral question regarding Mr
Berlusconi has dominated the final weeks of campaign. An outsider might
easily conclude that this is not so much a general as a presidential
election featuring just two men, Mr Berlusconi of the House of Liberties,
and the ex-mayor of Rome, Francesco Rutelli, of the centre-left Olive
coalition.
There are also some influential, independent smaller parties contesting the
vote, such as the Radicals of former European Commissioner Emma Bonino, the
Italy of Values party of former Clean Hands magistrate Antonio Di Pietro,
the European Democracy movement that includes seven-times prime minister
Giulio Andreotti, the hardline Marxist Rifondazione Communista party and the
equally hardline Fascist Fiamme Tricolore movement. All of them will
doubtless be supported by a faithful minority following, but those votes are
likely to be overwhelmed by the dialectic of what is essentially a bipolar,
left-versus-right contest. In that context, many see a win for Mr
Berlusconi's centre-right coalition over the outgoing centre-left government
as nothing more than the healthy functioning of a bipolar democracy of
alternatives.
To others, however, and these include not only centre-left exponents but
also intellectual heavyweights such as writer Umberto Eco, philosopher
Norberto Bobbio and Nobel prize laureate Dario Fo, a win for Mr Berlusconi
would represent the installation of a regime relying heavily on his alleged
ability to control 90 per cent of Italian terrestrial television, through
his own Mediaset Group and the state broadcaster, RAI. The basic questions
concerning Mr Berlusconi, much aired in the international media in recent
weeks, are obvious enough. Given his complex judicial track record (he has
featured in at least 10 investigations involving charges of fraud,
corruption, tax evasion and Mafia collusion), can Italians trust him? Given
the potential conflict of interests prompted by Italy's richest man, head of
a $14-billion empire, taking over the levers of power, are Italians wise in
entrusting their democracy to him?
Available opinion poll evidence would suggest that a majority of Italians,
all too familiar with the allegations, are unconcerned and will vote
Berlusconi. Significantly, too, recent foreign media attacks on Mr
Berlusconi prompted ex-FIAT president Gianni Agnelli to reject criticism
that treated Italians "as if they were the electorate of a banana republic".
Mr Berlusconi has undoubtedly been helped by the apparent endorsement of big
business. Arguably more important, though, is his charisma and populist
touch, somewhere halfway between Ted Turner and Juan Peron. A photo album
sent to 12 million Italian families and a contract, signed on TV this week
and pledging him to drop out if he does not realise major programme aims,
were just the latest examples of his uncanny electioneering skills.
On the last days of the campaign Mr Rutelli has attacked Mr Berlusconi,
arguing that the centre-right leader is a source of alarm for European Union
partners, that his fiscal policies will contravene the EU's stability pact,
that Mr Berlusconi does not have the stature to lead Italy and that his
self-imposed Blind Trust to resolve his conflict of interests is nothing
more than a Blind Bluff. Such attacks may not achieve their aim. For a
start, once in office, Mr Berlusconi may well move more cautiously than his
campaign rhetoric would suggest, especially on economic issues. Secondly, EU
partners, still smarting over the difficulties provoked by Austria's Jorg
Haider case, are likely to watch, wait and remain steadfastly silent.
If Mr Berlusconi is to encounter problems in office, they could well come
from the same source that brought down his first, seven-month government in
1994 - his maverick ally, Federalist Northern League leader Umberto Bossi.
Potential differences between Mr Bossi and the other major Berlusconi ally,
Gianfranco Fini of Alleanza Nazionale, are such that a centre-right
government could prove at least as fractious as its centre-left predecessor.
Critics of Mr Berlusconi have been issuing warnings to the effect that his
victory tomorrow would represent a threat to democracy and the rule of law.
That view is understandable but it perhaps misses the point. Silvio
Berlusconi, media tycoon and football club owner turned prime minister, is
not so much a threat to Italian democracy as a product of Italian democracy.

Quelle: IRISH TIMES 13/05/2001 P11