“Italy fourth power” – Corriere della Sera (May 16, 1991)
Many times we have seen the first page of Corriere della Sera “Italy fourth power” online, but how many stopped to read the article?
So let's take the issue of May 16, 1991 , the pages about the subject or the first page and page 3 from the newspaper archive.
Reading the words of now 30 years ago it is clear that it was a " swan song ", as the political class of that time was already digging the pit of the unionist cage.
In fact, in the text there is an interview with Gianni De Michelis (Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Andreotti VII government ) or the one who will go, together with Guido Carli (Treasury Minister), to negotiate and sign the Maastricht Treaty on 7 February 1992 (photo below).
SOURCE: Rai Storia – frame of this video
Having made this small premise, let's go back to 1991. Here is the complete transcription of the original documents.
Enjoy the reading.
ITALY FOURTH POWER ( SOURCE )
Andreotti and De Michelis are confident: the country is in Serie A and can stay there.
Ciampi: we are not under special surveillance but inflation must be attacked
ROME – Other than Serie B! Italy is firmly in Serie A and in fact it deserves fourth place in the ranking of the richest countries, having overtaken, after Great Britain, even France. It is the Foreign Minister, Gianni De Michelis , who announces that our national wealth, according to the calculations just baked by Business International , is now ahead of only Americans, Japanese and Germans.
De Michelis spoke in front of an audience of managers of large multinationals, the same one to whom Giulio Andreotti sent reassuring messages: “Italy is in Serie A and must stay there. The effort is considerable because the others are walking at a good pace, but I am convinced that we have every possibility of making it ”.
Italy's quotation "is really very high, and we are respected". “But – adds the Prime Minister – we must make a greater effort. More than optimism, I would speak of constructive trust. We have a hidden national reserve which has always guaranteed a recovery in the most difficult moments ”. This, however , warns the Governor of the Bank of Italy, must not make us relax : even if it is not in fact acceptable "a blackboard of the good and the bad or worse still of the supervised specialists, it must be recognized that in Italy there is a contradiction in economic policies ". Ciampi asks for two years of extraordinary commitment to lower inflation and reduce the deficit.
Money in the state coffers should come from privatization .
“We want to be serious”, assures Andreotti, promising short times, transparent procedures and certain rules.
WE ARE THE FOURTH POWER IN THE WORLD ( SOURCE )
De Michelis: "Enough with the Euroscemi and the sfascists who are only alarming"
"Bonn is worse off than us, if anyone misses it will be Poehl and not Italy from Serie A"
Rome – Enough with the Euroscemi and the sfascists who are only scaremongering. Our ruling class must stop engaging in self-defeating terrorism based on nothing. Italy is a country, despite all its problems, strong and rich. We are the fourth largest economic power in the world, ahead of France and England. Nobody in Europe will be able to impose anything on us . And if anyone misses it will be the president of the Bundesbank Poehl and not Italy from Serie A.
Gianni De Michelis has just started and already the hundred managers of the largest companies in the world that Business International has summoned for the usual annual check-up of the Italian economy looks stunned. For some time these gentlemen have heard nothing but the evils of Italy. Now all of a sudden, the music changes and the Foreign Minister overturns everything with his usual, crescendo air. Managers widen their eyes. “ European unification – De Michelis attacks – is proceeding very quickly , surpassing the most optimistic forecasts. I no longer call Europessimists but Euroscemi those who continue to not realize how things stand and send a message to Italy that only serves to not prepare the country for what is now a reality ”.
Euroscemi? Won't it be a translation error? No, the exuberant minister clarifies: “Despite what the Euroscemi think – he repeats -, European economic and monetary unity is a done deal . As for Italy, I don't feel like a stupid optimist: I know what kind of problems we have, from the public deficit to pensions, to public employment, to the South, but it's time to stop the alarmism. To read the press it seems that instead of Italy we are talking about Ukraine . This is not the case and it must be said once and for all. Let's look at the data. Our country is in the best conditions it has ever had. And this also with respect to the others ”.
Anyone have doubts? De Michelis explains: the Germans, from a political point of view, are in much more difficult conditions than ours, they have strong structural problems. “We don't have to keep thinking about yesterday's Germany , but about today and tomorrow, with the weight of unification. And what about England ? There will still be no vote and it is very uncertain what kind of government will emerge. So, while the future of Italy is easily predictable, at least until 1995, the English and German ones are not. "
Not even France is saved: “It has a stability linked to the presidential system. But the internal situation is complex ”. On balance, therefore, "we are the country that from this point of view can look to the future in conditions no worse than the others and if, as I hope, and it is the only comment I make as a socialist, we will have Craxi as Prime Minister, even with a firmer hand ”.
Someone in the hall is incredulous. Think of a revenge kidney shot. Two days ago Eurostat gave Italy the sixth world power (based on the statistical unit Spa, ie purchasing power standard), overtaken by England. But figures are coming from Brussels based on the calculation of GDP at current market prices, which put us back in fifth place. And De Michelis announces that a very fresh study of Business International , not yet known in Europe, indicates that Italy has overtaken France and is the fourth economic power in the world .
“It may be – he adds – that these data are partial, but here it is written that the GDP of Italy in 1991 was 1,268 billion dollars and that of France 1,209 billion . England is now irreversibly behind. If by chance France had overtaken Germany, we would have seen parades on the Elysian Fields and national holidays. Why must Italy always be a self-defeating country "?
SOURCE: Rai Storia – frame of this video
But, then, the concerns of Carli? The spectrum of the "series B"? “When Carli talks about budgetary constraints, he says something right and wrong at the same time: substantially right, but wrong in the sense that Italy has the authority and the political and economic weight to say no. As the negotiations for European unity is done with us, I guarantee you that we will not impose anything that we are not able to accept and so if there will be one that will jump Poehl (which in fact is going to resign ed) and not Italy from Serie A.
But are we going to Europe with maneuvers like the one launched last Saturday by the government? “That – De Michelis also attacks on this front – has been branded as a maneuver, trying to ridicule her with the history of mobile phones. But a maneuver of 1% of GDP is not a trivial matter. We have brought the budget in surplus . We must now solve the pension problem: I fully support Carli. The reform must be carried out with rigorous criteria, but in the right dimension, which takes into account the social rights to be preserved and the economic equilibrium to be achieved ".
Thanks to our Telegram channel you can stay updated on the publication of new articles of Economic Scenarios.
The article "Italy fourth power" – Corriere della Sera (May 16, 1991) comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/italia-quarta-potenza-corriere-della-sera-16-maggio-1991/ on Sun, 16 May 2021 12:00:06 +0000.