The legacy of Mario Draghi
Dragons? A great gentleman away from parties. This was his strength, which turned into weakness when politics was called upon to choose the new President of the Republic. Guiglia's notebook
Just a year ago Mario Draghi went up to the Quirinale to resign as prime minister of a government of national unity. The longest-lived in the history of the Republic (1 year and 8 months), led by a personality unrelated to the parties. In his place, ironically, Giorgia Meloni would have ended up, the only opponent of that emergency room executive to heal the economic and health crisis: Covid was still scary.
Therefore, a year without Draghi, yet the fruits of what the most appreciated Italian in the world has sown for his skills in the economic and financial field – he had previously been president of the ECB for 9 years and Governor of the Bank of Italy for almost 6 -, are still being harvested. Defining Meloni "draghiana" would be an excess for her and for him.
However, the current Prime Minister has remained in line with the line drawn by Draghi in economic and foreign policy. Even with the inevitable updates and avoidable delays, the so-called PNRR reworked by Draghi for the relaunch of Italian production and employment is still the engine of recovery. And in the relationship with Brussels, the Meloni-executive has abandoned the long-ridden populist and sovereignist temptations.
Lastly, the Italian-European memorandum signed in Tunisia by Meloni, who wanted to be accompanied by the president of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, bears witness to this. Continuity also on Italy's position against Putin's war, that is, alongside Ukraine, NATO and the West, following Draghi's Atlanticist approach and his famous train journey to Kiev with Scholz and Macron. Nor can we forget that, if we hung up our masks today, thanks to the vaccination campaign promoted by Draghi-Figliuolo. Often criticized – another irony of fate – by Meloni for a penalty deemed excessive, and instead proved to be successful.
Draghi's legacy is in the political impossibility, for Meloni and for anyone who will come after her, to go back with respect to the institutional duties of seriousness, ability and credibility required to administer public affairs. There is an after Draghi that is everyone's heritage. In the meantime, he left the scene as he entered it: on tiptoe and speaking to his ministers. A great gentleman away from parties.
This was his strength, which turned into weakness when politics was called to choose the new President of the Republic at the end of Mattarella's mandate, who did not want an encore. And who, if not Dragons? But the formation of "national unity" did not want that "intruder", who had just put Italy back on the road. And which today, withdrawn and out of the Palazzo games, still remains a reserve of the Republic. As no one knows better than President Mattarella, who was the architect of Draghi's masterpiece at Palazzo Chigi.
(Published in L'Arena di Verona and the Giornale di Vicenza)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/leredita-di-mario-draghi/ on Sat, 22 Jul 2023 07:23:24 +0000.