Zelensky, Bolkestein, Biden’s Wrath and the future of Italy
Paolo Rubino’s speech
Thursday for the Italian government, in the European and international arena, was commented as a Caporetto.
The non-invitation of our prime minister to the dinner at the Elysée with Zelensky has strongly affected the imagination of public opinion. What then also missed the announced aperitif tête-à-tête between Giorgia Meloni and the Ukrainian president and we had to settle for chips and coca cola as in a kindergarten party in the company of Spanish, Romanian, Polish, Dutch and Swedish has deeply disappointed everyone. In this scenario Zelensky appears as Louis XIV at the court of Versailles where an emasculated aristocracy thrills for the concession to lick the spoon used by the king for his sorbet, a concession reserved only for those nobles who have passed out to replenish the royal coffers with taxes and donations. The king’s coffers, as we know, were the state coffers, but also his own personal coffers for a gentleman who, although he never explicitly said it, nevertheless certainly thought it: L’état, c’est moi!
Just like Zelensky, in contemporary Europe, he seems to have convinced everyone that he is democracy. And, therefore, you have to give him missiles, fighter planes, sophisticated tanks, and money, in order to aspire to kiss his hand. Italy skimps and, therefore, like a petty penniless provincial baron, is kept on the sidelines of the great celebration in Brussels, the contemporary Versailles of the Europeans.
Not only that, just like a petty frondist baron of Gascony in the France of sovereign absolutism, Italy also throws tantrums: it doesn’t implement the Bolkestein directive on seaside concessions; calls for the revision of EU legislation on the reception of migrants; calls for a common fund to support European industrial policies; associates with other frondists on the fringes of the Union. Even, he doesn’t leave the free tribune at the Sanremo festival to the Lord of democracy and here we are truly at the great affront.
Finally, the national inferiority complex is certified by the phrase “we are nobody’s servants” topos of those who, on the contrary, are endemically servants. Now maybe we hope for a statement from some over eighty-five maître à penser, preferably a former minister or former constitutional judge, who says that our current prime minister is a wise, prudent and visionary politician, in short, a great statesman. A statement that alleviates and makes people forget the alleged humiliation suffered in Brussels.
It matters little to Italian commentators, and to public opinion, whether the government’s guidelines and choices pursue the national interest. Does banning auctions for beach concessions go in the direction of strengthening the tourist hospitality industry, which is also rhetorically considered crucial for the future of the Italian economy? And here we intend to refer to the legal industry and not that of the Lido di Ostia which is hard to imagine harmed by public auctions. Is trying to regulate immigration flows useful to protect the wage levels of national workers? On this point so much rhetoric and few facts.
It is therefore legitimate to think that unrestrained immigration serves to keep wages low, a true, albeit undeclarable, interest of the European entrepreneurial class. Are common European funds to support industrial policies the pretense of a ragged government or the only realistic way to compete with the United States and China? Does supporting Zelensky without limits amount to a crusade in defense of democracy or, like the historical crusades, is it a struggle to appropriate a vast consumer market and a rich production of precious raw materials? And, if so, has anyone carried out a cost/benefit analysis for the Italian economy? None of this is happening in Italy and, in the meantime, a government that has received broad electoral support above all on the basis of a promise to defend national industry, restore equity in the distribution of wealth, substantially recover efficiency in the The administration of justice, a strengthening of national cohesion, a promotion of demographic recovery are contradicted by decreeing, for example, that air transport must be carried out by non-national entrepreneurs; that employees must pay more taxes than self-employed workers; that efficient justice should be pursued not through appropriate investment spending, but with yet another chimerical great reform; that a further phase of devolution be carried out in favor of the regions of pieces of state administration; that an overall reduction of the tax levy is pursued, especially through the de-contribution of social security contributions by shifting the burden to future generations.
The issues that commentators should bring to the attention of public opinion are these contradictions, without correcting which it is very probable that electoral consensus will quickly run out, once again jeopardizing the continuity of the country’s political management. It is this constant discontinuity that makes the future of the nation precarious and this will certainly not be remedied by the coveted alchemies of the constitutional order pursued for over forty years now by generations of politicians who have succeeded in the national government.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/zelensky-bolkestein-ira-di-biden-e-il-futuro-italia/ on Sat, 11 Feb 2023 06:00:52 +0000.