EU Referendum

Showing posts with label Italy. Show all posts

Berlusconi+01[i-Berlusconi+01]The Italian right-wing alliance under Silvio Berlusconi, the once and future come-back kid, appears to have won a substantial victory.

Pollsters' projections, based on partial results, gave Berlusconi a 99-seat majority in the 630-member lower house and an advantage of up to 30 seats in the Senate, which has 315 elected and seven lifetime senators.

That contrasts with the two-seat Senate majority that the last government had under Romano Prodi, who resigned in January just 20 months into his five-year term. Berlusconi had set his sights on a 20-seat majority in the Senate.

Of course, this will be a coalition government with a strong presence by the Northern League that is still fighting for a more federal structure. Despite the handsome majority, Signor Berlusconi might find that a problem.

One must admit that as a reforming prime minister Berlusconi left a good deal to be desired. His great value, apart from his basic pro-Americanism and suspicion (no more than that) of the European Union, was his ability to reduce the left of centre main-stream media (a tautology, really) to foaming rage. Clearly, he does not have the same effect on the people of Italy.

Another report by Reuters shows that the left is once again whining with self-pity and blaming it all on the people who, as usual, have let them down.

The New York Times points to what might be an interesting political development in a country that is not known for the stability of its governments.

But in some basic ways, the election signaled a decisive shift in a nation whose politics have been unstable because of the involvement of many small parties with narrow interests. As head of the newly born Democratic Party — the merging of the two largest center-left parties — Mr. Veltroni had refused to run with far-left parties as Mr. Prodi had done.

As a result, the ANSA news agency reported that the number of parties in the parliament’s lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, would drop from 26 to just 6. On both the left and right, experts said — and in some cases lamented — the election showed a shift toward a more American- or British-style system of two dominant parties.

“It’s a Waterloo,” runs Tuesday’s headline in the moderate left daily Il Riformista.

Its editor, Antonio Polito, a departing senator from the now-defunct Margherita party, said: “The left is disappearing for the first time in history.” Referring to Mr. Veltroni’s party, he added, “The only party that managed to save itself after two disastrous Prodi years is a party that is
modeling itself after the Democratic or Labor parties,” in the United States and Britain respectively.

Mr. Berlusconi’s spokesman, Paolo Bonaiuti, echoed the analysis. “Italy has rewarded a simplification of the political panorama.”

The first thing the new Prime Minister will have to deal with will be Italy's unhealthy economy, which was the first thing he had to deal with the last time he was elected and, indeed, the first thing the now ex-Prime Minister, Romano Prodi, had to deal with.

Veltroni+01[i-Veltroni+01]The Italian Parliament was dissolved yesterday by President Napolitano and elections will take place on April 13. There is a great deal of regret being expressed about this happening under the existing, unreformed rules that were introduced by the then Prime Minister Berlusconi in 2005.

Critics apparently say that the existing electoral law makes “stable government nearly impossible”. As there have been 61 governments in Italy since the end of World War II, with several being considerably shorter than Prodi’s 20 month one, that statement needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. We can’t help suspecting that the critics are all opponents of Berlusconi, a man who is an adroit if unimaginative politician and who excites strong passions.

Berlusconi will lead the right-wing coalition while Walter Veltroni, the Mayor of Rome, will lead the centre-left one. One wonders what Signor Prodi will do next? First President of the European Council of the European Union? Much more likely than Tony Blair becoming that.

Meanwhile Walter Veltroni is getting carried away and announcing himself to be Italy’s Obama though he does not have the latter’s inspiring good looks.

Given that it is not quite clear yet where America’s Obama is going to be at the end of this year and given that campaigning on “change”, any change, is not necessarily as popular in Italy as it might be in the United States, a country that is in some ways dedicated to change, though in others the most conservative land in the West, Signor Veltroni’s campaign may not be all that successful. At present Berlusconi’s lot are about 10 points ahead in the opinion polls.

Another problem raises its ugly head: what is to become of the Constitutional Reform Lisbon Treaty?

Italian+senate[i-Italian+senate]Well, just a few times. As predicted, the Italian Prime Minister, Romano Prodi has resigned after a vote of no confidence in the Senate where he had lost his majority. And so, goodbye the 61st Italian government since the war. Prodi was Prime Minister for 20 months, which is quite respectable. Maybe we should start getting rid of our governments that fast.

Fear not. While President Giorgio Napolitano conducts emergency negotiations with interested parties to form an interim government with as much support that can be mustered among all the disparate parties, a caretaker prime minister has been appointed. His name? Romano Prodi. You may have heard it before.

Now, what does this remind me of? Well there was the case of the European Commission under Jacques Santer that resigned (not dismissed by the European Parliament, as some of its members like to claim) and came back after a prolonged Brussels-type lunch as a caretaker Commission.

Not so long ago when the Constitutional Reform Lisbon Treaty was being signed in the eponymous city Belgium was represented by the caretaker prime minister, one Guy Verhofstadt, who had been defeated in the previous election. His caretaker government seems to be in for the duration.

In the meantime, Silvio Berlusconi is calling for a snap election under the existing rules that he introduced in his days as elected prime minister. His party is celebrating as can be seen in the picture I could not resist nicking from AP.

Prodi_02[i-Prodi_02]Once again, thanks to our readers who supply us with material when we nod off with boredom. In this case we nearly missed a delightful tale from the land of all tales, Italy.

As Il Giornale puts it, “La bomba arriva alle 18,30 del Lunedì”. I guess my Italian runs to that. The “bomba”, as the Financial Times helpfully explains, is the withdrawal of a small Catholic party, Udeur, from the coalition, leaving it without a majority in the Senate.

In his statement the leader of the party, Clemente Mastella, until recently the Justice Minister, made no bones about it:

“This majority, the life of this centre-left is finished. It is over. I am not discussing it,” Mr Mastella told a news conference.

It should be interesting to see what will happen tomorrow “when the upper house considers a vote of no confidence in Pecoraro Scanio, the environment minister, over the rubbish crisis in Naples”.

What is it that made Clemente Mastella withdraw from the government in such a huff.? He resigned a week ago because he “was reported to be under investigation for corruption following the arrest of his wife”. So sensitive, these people. What’s an investigation or two between friends?

Clearly, Romano Prodi thought it was not important as he tried to refuse Signor Mastella’s resignation but failed to do so. Now the entire party has gone and quite possibly there will be no Italian government this time next week.

The FT is sanguine, pointing out that the president does not want another election under the present electoral system but the various small parties that are still in the coalition have a vested interest in the system remaining precisely as it is. So, Prodi might hang on in there with the help of the littlies.

An even more interesting question is what is to happen with the Constitutional Reform Lisbon Treaty if the government collapses.

tokaji1[i-tokaji1]Well, I don’t know about song, though music is rarely absent from any story to do with Italy or Hungary, but wine and women definitely turn up in this one.

The wine is spelled variously as Tokay or Tocai and has been a problem for some time. Tokay or, in its correct spelling, Tokaji, that is of the place called Tokaj, is the famous dessert wine of Hungary. Grown and produced for a number of centuries, it is highly valued and, in my own perhaps not unbiased opinion, is the best of that breed, far outranking the French ones. (But I am prepared to listen to alternative points of view on this.)

So proud of this wine are the Hungarians that there is a reference to it in verse 3 of the National Anthem, the words being written by the well-known poet and litterateur of the early nineteenth century, Ferenc Kölcsey. (Hey, you have to keep up on this blog, you know.)

Other wines have been named Tokay as well, including one in Alsace, but the one that has been a particular problem is the Italian Tocai, a medium-bodied, very pleasant, dry white wine from the Friuliano region. Pleasant it may be but it is not a patch on the real Tokaji though it, too, seems to have existed from 1700.

The fact is, however, that French and Italian food and wine producers have benefited from the pernicious EU system of name protection. Now the decision has gone against them and they do not like it much. “Under the terms of Hungary's EU accession, it was agreed that winegrowers in Italy and France, which also had a wine called Tokay d'Alsace, should relinquish the name.”

The story as published on Buzzle.com quotes the Guardian from 2006 and shows that the Italian wine producers were all set either to challenge or to circumvent the decision, whichever came easier. Sadly, they found just as many non-French and non-Italian producers have found in the past that it is not so easy and having produced a wine called Tocai since 1700 is not going to save you from the ECJ deciding who can and who cannot use certain labels.

An appeal by the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia region of Italy to the European Court has been turned down, with the judges ruling that Italian Tocai “does not qualify as a geographical indication” because “it has no special quality, reputation or characteristic that is attributable to its geographic origin”.

Gianola Nonino, whose family has been making wine at Udine in Friuli for generations, called the decision “appalling”.

“They have stolen a part of our history,” she said, adding that the new name, Friulano, was "terrible”, since it was simply an adjective describing anything that comes from Friuli.

Marco Felluga, another leading Friuli wine producer, said that the loss of the Tocai brand was “incredible . . . Italy has lost its wine war with Hungary. It’s like saying that from tomorrow Italians cannot call pizza pizza any more.”

Signor Pizzul said that the row was “particularly absurd because the Italian and Hungarian versions of Tocai are quite different”. Italian Tocai is an aromatic dry white made entirely from the Tocai grape (known as Sauvignon Vert in France), whereas Hungarian Tokai or Tokaji is a sweet dessert wine made using Furmint and Haréslvelü grapes.

The latest news is that nothing much has changed. The ECJ maintains that Hungary alone has the right to use the name Tokaji or any version thereof and the Italian wine makers who will now have to call their Friuliano are worried that they will lose sales.

“It would almost be comical if it were not so serious,” the association said. “Chambers of commerce that have to register Friuli wine for 2008 cannot because they don’t know what to call it.”

Indeed, one could say that about almost anything to do with EU regulation that it would be comical if it were not so serious.

Sadly, this victory (if it ever materializes, that is) does not seem to make the Hungarians any happier, perhaps because they are largely unaware of the battle. The Courrier International.com quotes from an article published in the well-known Hungarian weekly, Élet és Irodalom (Life and Literature):

Surveys show that the EU has lost popularity in Hungary in 2007. That's because the EU is seen as an elitist theme, suggests sociologist Pál Tamás. "Gradually, the relationship between Hungary and the EU has changed. True, the EU is still seen as connected with Brussels, officials and regulations ? though in day to day talk the term EU is increasingly used to mean just that - all of the Union. ... At the same time, however, there is a widely accepted view that we are second-class EU citizens. In other words, EU acceptance was their decision, not ours. This notion can only be overcome through demonstrations of our own interests, perhaps through independent decisions on specific issues."

Actually, as we wrote at the time, the support for EU membership was lukewarm at best in most East European countries, particularly Hungary. The turn-out for those referendums was very low, not even reaching 50 per cent in Hungary. The reason was clear: few people wanted to vote for the parties that opposed membership, which were either rather unpleasant, archaic, inward looking nationalists or unreconstructed communists but there was no great enthusiasm for the actual project either.

The article itself (for those who read Hungarian) is considerably longer but the summary is fair. EU membership is perceived as an elite project, which has given little to the people of Hungary. Ah well, we did warn them but they wouldn’t listen.

link[i-link]Wait a minute, I hear you cry. What happened to the women? We have had the wine and there will be no song but women?

For that we have to go back to Italy’s rows with the world, it sometimes seems, about its alcoholic production. Paris Hilton, the heiress to a somewhat decreasing number of millions if gossip columns are to be believed, has been hired to advertise something called Rich Prosecco.

The tussle with Paris Hilton, meanwhile, is over a drink called Rich Prosecco and its advertising campaign featuring the heiress wearing nothing but a coating of gold paint, in imitation of the actress Shirley Eaton in the James Bond film Goldfinger.

On the whole Italians do not object to seeing Ms Hilton in the nude. What has caused anger is that she has not only used the name “prosecco”, which Italians regard as their copyright, but also — sacrilegiously — put the drink in a can and mixed it with fruit juice.

The defence offered by Ms Hilton’s publicity machine is that Rich Prosecco is not being marketed in Italy. It was launched last year at a typically extravagant “mega-party” in the Austrian Alps. Ms Hilton, who emerged from a helicopter in a glittering dress, declared the drink to be “yummy”.

Günther Aloys, the businessman who created Rich Prosecco, said that she was “pleasant and uncomplicated. Nobody embodies carefree lust for life as convincingly and glamorously as Paris Hilton.”

However, in Treviso, one of the centres of Italian prosecco production, winemakers are not amused. Fulvio Brunetta, head of the Treviso branch of Coldiretti, the farmers’ union, said that Ms Hilton’s drink was an insult. He said Italian producers would meet this month to consider their response, “up to and including legal action”. Mr Brunetta said that he had nothing against Ms Hilton. “But she is . . . creating a generation of consumers who will forever associate the name of prosecco with something similar to an alcoholic fruit drink.”

It seems to me (and I am not a prosecco drinker nor somebody who would buy a disgusting sounding canned drink because Ms Hilton has painted herself gold) that people who “will forever associate the name of prosecco with something similar to an alcoholic fruit drink” are unlikely to buy the real stuff, anyway. It all adds to the gaiety of nations and the bank accounts of lawyers.

Mastrogiacomo[i-Mastrogiacomo]Remember the story of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, captured by an Iraqi terrorist group and released after the Italian government paid out the demanded ransom? The Americans had, quite rightly, demanded that no ransom be handed over to terrorist group. The Italians were so anxious not to let the Americans know what was going on that the car in which she was taken to Baghdad airport was not clearly identified. As a result an Italian secret service officer, Nicola Calipari was killed.

Or this story of the two Italian aid workers (what on earth has happened to them?) whose release may well have been brought about by the Italian Red Cross transporting wanted terrorists through American check-points.

Last May it was estimated that Italy had already paid over the equivalent of $11 million in ransom (and that is not counting, presumably, the use of those Red Cross ambulances).

This week we have news of an Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo, 52, of the leftist newspaper La Repubblica, who does seem to have had a very bad time, indeed, in the hands of his Taliban captors, being released after the Italian authorities in Afghanistan released five Taliban prisoners, one of whom immediately announced his intention to hunt down infidels.

This is, if anything, more worrying than the stories of ransom being paid over, though, not perhaps more than the misuse of Red Cross immunity. The Italian opposition has protested and at least one member of the National Alliance party is talking of a very dangerous precedent.

Romano Prodi’s spokesman, Silvio Sircana, who happens to be a friend of Mastrogiacomo’s, is unfussed. As far as he is concerned, Italy did the right thing morally and from a humanitarian point of view:

We think that the life of a person is very precious. So if there is a chance to save a life we must do all we can do. And this was our very simple line and not anything more.

Well, well. What of the lives that will be taken as a result of those Taliban prisoners being released? Or the lives of future hostages, gleefully kidnapped by the Taliban in the hopes of future agreements of this kind? Or are they not all that precious if they are not left-wing Italian journalists with good contacts among the top political brass?

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Prodi[i-Prodi]Back in April 11, the newly elected Prime Minister, still in dispute about who is to form the Italian government, said:

We will always be united. We will govern for five years.

Did he believe it at the time? For ourselves, this blog expressed a certain amount of doubt on the subject, if for no other reason that the arithmetic did not give Prodi the chance to govern for more than well, let us say, nine months from when he finally took office. Not a bad record for an Italian Prime Minister but not really close to that of his hated rival, Silvio Berlusconi.

What will happen now to Prodi’s campaign to abolish capital punishment across the world (with the exception of China and various Arab countries that are not Iraq)?

Of course, you must understand, this does not mean that Signor Prodi will retire to the back benches. For one thing, the President, Giorgio Napolitano, has asked him to continue in a caretaker capacity. For another, it seems that there is a growing support for the idea of another Prodi government.

According to an AP writer (and I do think they must have got this right):

"We are ready to reconfirm our full faith in the Prodi government," said Dario Franceschini, a leader of the Olive Tree, the largest grouping in Prodi's coalition.

Oh that’s nice. I am sure Signor Prodi will sleep better for that knowledge. At least, none of them said that they were right behind the man. Not yet, anyway.

Italian+senate[i-Italian+senate]The problem seems to have come from a debate in the Senate on foreign policy, attended about as well as our own debates in the Commons tend to be, if the picture is anything to go by.

Under discussion was Italy’s military mission to Afghanistan, organized by Silvio Berlusconi, which is in something of a limbo at the moment.

Italy has 1,800 troops in Afghanistan, which were sent in by Berlusconi. The current government has agreed to keep the troops there, sparking opposition from its own Communist allies.

A decree refinancing the Afghan mission is awaiting parliamentary approval. It was passed by the Cabinet last month, but three radical leftist ministers walked out of the room to signal their opposition.

The Foreign Minister, Massimo d’Alema, tried to rally the coalition but failed. The vote was lost by two votes. In the Lower House, Prodi’s support is more secure and, we must assume, he will be able to negotiate another coalition for another government.

It’s great to have the old Italian politics back with us. Happy days are here again.

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