Greta and Pope Francis, Europeanism and dirigisme: Draghi’s religions are too many and too dogmatic

19 February 20213 years ago babelfish

But Italy does not need priests and sung masses, they need pragmatic leaders and "secular" decisions. Immediately clear pacts with Salvini: "Supporting this government means sharing the irreversibility of the choice of the euro". Disturbing message to companies: that "we will not protect them all" hides the will to sacrifice many on the altar of Gretinism, of the "Green" transition. Progressivism behind the expressed competence …

We do not exclude that from the Draghi government shareable measures and reforms may arrive, in particular on the long-standing issues that slow down the growth of our country such as taxation, public administration, civil justice, infrastructures, competition, but in general the idea of the role of the government and a strongly managerial economic vision, which is joined to a fideistic approach to climate change and the EU, expressed this morning by the Prime Minister, are to be rejected. The bottom line is: don't ask yourself what you can do for your country, the whole government will do it. Whether there are incompetent or competent people to guide it, a Leviathan always touches us by lot. But we do not want the Leviathan, even if he comes to give us alms and to offer us his loving care.

One of the very last sentences of his speech today reveals Draghi's profoundly statist and dirigiste conception: the reference to "young people who want a country capable of realizing their dreams" . No, young people want to make their dreams come true by themselves, if anything they expect the country not to hinder them. And this is all the difference between a statist, authoritarian vision of the government and a liberal one.

A speech interrupted by a few short and feeble applause (poor consensus, or difficulty of the senators to follow the professor's lesson?), Which Draghi opened with a quote from Cavour: "The reforms completed in time, instead of weakening the , strengthen it ". Here, we would have liked to hear him conclude with another quotation from Cavour: “There is no principle, however fair and reasonable, which, if we exaggerate it, cannot lead us to the worst consequences”.

Because of principles taken to their extreme consequences, in the speech of the new prime minister, we have heard many. It may seem paradoxical, but behind various figures, studies and technicalities, Draghi seemed to us to lack the pragmatism and the “secular” approach to the problems that one would expect from a “technician”.

Starting with his profession of Gretinist faith, an ecologism elevated to an almost millennial cult, where he indicated global warming and the exploitation of the planet "one of the causes of the transmission of the virus from animals to man", quoting Pope Francis: "The tragedies natural are Earth's response to our mistreatment. And I think that if I asked the Lord what he thinks, I don't think he would tell me that it is a good thing: we have ruined the work of the Lord ”. In this, missing a good opportunity to call into question the much more tangible responsibilities of the Chinese regime.

A fideistic approach also on Italy's membership of the European Union and on the irreversibility of the euro. With a Giorgetti on his right who nodded from time to time, Draghi evidently intended to immediately put Salvini back in line after yesterday's release on the euro ("the only thing irreversible is death"): "Supporting this government means sharing the irreversibility of the choice of the euro… ”.

Certainly one could not expect from the former central banker of the “whatever it takes” a criticism of the euro, or even one that would evoke its reversibility. But he could have expressed support for and joining the euro by avoiding proclaiming its irreversibility, in what seemed more like a way of sanctioning the pro-European metamorphosis of one of the majority shareholders: it is the irreversibility of the pro-European turn. of the League that in that passage Draghi first of all wanted to remind those in duty: clear pacts, long friendship …

But the single currency is an instrument, not an end. An instrument of well-being and prosperity. If it is poorly constructed, if it contributes to increasing imbalances rather than reducing them, then it can and must be questioned, without taboos.

Also because the claimed irreversibility of the euro is not in our exclusive availability. Others may be making it a reversible choice. The Germans first, when they become convinced that it is not in their interest to share our debts and create a common European budget.

And what will Draghi do – perhaps some senator or deputy will dare to question him on this – when the Germans, as most likely, will say Nein , Nein , Nein to the QE of the ECB and to the common budget? And when will they demand a return to the Stability Pact (it will be discussed as early as May)? Will he take it realistically, or will he (and us) hang on the irreversibility of the choice of the euro?

But not only the irreversibility of the euro, Draghi says that supporting his government "means sharing the perspective of an increasingly integrated European Union that will arrive at a common public budget capable of supporting countries in times of recession". Here we have to borrow Mrs Thatcher's three no's in Delors. No to the Superstate, no to further transfers of national sovereignty, no to the growth of European public spending, no to assistance from North-South Europe. Above all in a context of deficit of democracy and liberalism of the European institutions and of our subjection to the manifest Franco-German hegemony.

“Without Italy there is no Europe. But, outside of Europe there is less Italy. There is no sovereignty in solitude. There is only the deception of what we are, in the oblivion of what we have been and in the denial of what we could be ”.

Here too, a good exercise in rhetoric but little truth and even less pragmatism. We can of course support the convenience of the “more Europe” option, but there is life even without the euro, there is life – just think – even outside the European Union, as recently demonstrated. The claim to describe life outside of it, in a now globalized world, as a deserted land of loneliness and despair, is only the result of ideological training . It is not a good service to the cause, precisely in this period of pandemic, to keep silent about the failures of the EU and the successes of “small” and large nations led by leadership that have been able to combine national identities and interests with a liberal and global vision.

And concretely, today we should begin to ask ourselves whether Europeanism and Atlanticism are not two instances, I do not already say alternatives to each other, but at least competing. The European Union under Franco-German leadership, that of strategic autonomy that Merkel and Macron have in mind, which signs strategic economic and energy agreements with Moscow and Beijing, which it has not been able to keep within the United Kingdom to pursue the anti- historian of a Superstate, are we really sure it's Atlanticist?

But there is a third matter addressed by Draghi in his speech in which a just and reasonable principle, if taken to extremes, can lead to the most fatal consequences.

“The government will have to protect workers, all workers, but it would be a mistake to protect all economic activities equally. Some will have to change, even radically. And the choice of which activities to protect and which to accompany in the change is the difficult task that economic policy will have to face in the coming months. "

Hidden here is the insidious idea, already sketched out by the former minister Gualtieri, but endorsed by Draghi, of "selective" refreshments, only for companies considered "vital", that is, those that were doing well before the pandemic broke out and that will have a future even after. But how can a government (on what basis, according to what criteria?) Judge whether or not an economic activity can recover from the pandemic. Who decides if it can go back to being "vital"? The "competent"? The Eurogroup? And when? Before or after vaccinating the population and reopening the country? Before or after being compensated for the damages inflicted by government-imposed closures?

Support for economic activities affected by the crisis and / or closed for health reasons cannot turn into indiscriminate welfare, but woe betide if a politburo in Rome or Brussels arrogates a life-or-death power over companies and VAT numbers, and potentially over entire sectors, depending on whether or not they are considered functional to an idea of transformation of the economy from above, to this or that “transition” which is the result of an ideological choice rather than market dynamics.

Woe betide if the pandemic becomes the pretext for a gigantic economic and social "cleansing" operation to the detriment of micro and small businesses, for years considered in some quarters an obstacle to our growth, or of sectors not in line with the "Green" transition .

On the whole, Draghi's speech on the issue of the health emergency appeared to us to be gravely inadequate and reticent.

The commitments to "inform citizens sufficiently in advance of any change in the rules" (dig in Speranza), to distribute vaccines "quickly and efficiently", mobilizing "all the energies we can count on, using civil protection, armed forces, to the many volunteers ", not limiting vaccinations" within specific places, often not yet ready "(dig in Arcuri), but involving" all available structures, public and private ", and" learning from countries that they moved ”before and better than us.

However, we have not grasped even the shadow of a reflection on an alternative strategy of coexistence with the virus that does not involve the destruction of entire economic sectors, nor the intention to overcome the emergency legal framework, that combined provision of law decrees and Dpcm, set up by Count 2 to limit fundamental freedoms with monochromatic acts of the Prime Minister or the Minister of Health.

We do not know, from this morning's speech, whether Draghi intends to gradually reopen the country immediately, or on the contrary intends to wait for the completion of the vaccination campaign, for which to date, barring miracles, it will take months.

He said nothing about colored zones, lockdowns , curfews and closures of businesses. His commitment "to do everything so that they can return, in the shortest possible time, in the recognition of their rights, to the normality of their occupations", and "quickly return to a normal school timetable, even spreading it over different bands, is too general and obvious. hours, making up for the hours of face-to-face teaching lost last year ". He did not tell us how and if he believes that something needs to be changed now, and possibly what, in the current strategy of containing the contagion.

There was no lack of encouraging passages: the "profound revision of the personal income tax by gradually reducing the tax burden and preserving [alas, ed ] the progressivity", although the reference to a commission of technicians seems to throw the ball in the stands; a more balanced social security system, which protects temporary and self-employed workers; the centrality of technical institutes in the school and training system; gender equality that does not require "a pharisaic respect for women's quotas" but "equal competitive conditions between genders"; the reference to merit.

In foreign policy, in addition to the reference to Atlanticism, the pro-Chinese drift stop positive, Draghi snubbed Beijing by reserving a hint of generic "concern" for the geopolitical tensions in Asia, while towards Russia a position that seemed Merkelian , of critical openness.

As President Draghi underlined, “the quality of decisions counts, the courage of visions counts, the days don't matter. The time of power can be wasted even in the sole concern of conserving it ”. We wish him this is not the case.

The post Greta and Pope Francis, Europeanism and dirigisme: Draghi's religions are too many and too dogmatic appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/greta-e-papa-francesco-europeismo-e-dirigismo-le-religioni-di-draghi-sono-troppe-e-troppo-fanatiche/ on Wed, 17 Feb 2021 14:42:24 +0000.