It seems to have returned to a few decades ago, when the Rimini Meeting was the center of politics at the end of August. After Sergio Mattarella’s appeal to responsibility, here it is speech by Mario Draghi, which breaks months of silence to confirm itself more as a gold reserve of the Republic than as an alternative to Giuseppe Conte. It seems to have returned to a decade ago, when Giorgio Napolitano was re-elected and his invective against the parties unable to find an alternative was applauded by tournaments of parliamentarians in adoration while they were beaten.
That ramshackle scenario has deteriorated rather than patched up, and the former central banker has flown high, keeping himself as prudently as legitimately away from the daily struggle, from a politics that scrambles around electoral deals to Pomigliano and for the Marche or for the anti-mess pacts, and chattering from vacation spots, postponing the unraveling of knots that could choke the country to September.
There is a kind of “Quirinal mind”In the speech studded with applause by the former ECB banker. His informal warning binds the theme of debt to that of young people, encourages a rational economic policy, distrusts the repeated use of subsidies, keeps its gaze fixed on Europe, and on a horizon that is not limited to gathering consensus within the emergency chaos. There is something to think about for many, from Palazzo Chigi down, with Giuseppe Conte who is silent so as not to give the impression of wanting to chase an uncomfortable competitor, in the hope that someone will listen. Because, without wanting to do the exegesis of the text, the messages launched by Draghi are precise, and touch the Giallorossi thing, its contradictions, its delays and its twists. “The subsidies are used to survive, to restart”, concedes the former governor of the Bank of Italy. Then he discards: “However, we must give more to young people: the subsidies will end and there will remain the lack of a professional qualification, which will be able to sacrifice their freedom of choice and their future income”.
For this reason, “economic policy is expected not to add uncertainty to that caused by the pandemic and change. Otherwise we will end up being controlled by uncertainty instead of us controlling it. We would lose our way ”. Instead, “now is the time for wisdom in choosing the future we want to build”.
And down the applause, from Italia viva (which immediately asks for the abolition of Quota 100 and citizenship income because otherwise “it would be hypocritical to applaud it”) as well as from the Democratic Party, while the 5 stars would like to but cannot, because to beat hands to an exponent of a category (bankers) who have always been on the black list of grillismo there is a risk of burning your hands.
“The future lies in even profound reforms of the existing. We need to think about it immediately ”, says Draghi, underlining that it will be inevitable to burden himself with further debt. With a fundamental distinction: “It will be sustainable, that is, it will continue to be subscribed in the future, if used for production purposes, such as investments in human capital, in infrastructures crucial for production, in research, etc. that is, if it is a good debt ”. Translated: if the government continues with subsidies, with a disorganized chaos in planning, with the distribution of the recovery fund, it will put a serious risk on the future of the country.
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A coincidence is revealing: on the day when the executive is once again busy with the management of the restart of the school year, the former governor of the ECB hits the button precisely on this: “However, there is a sector, essential for growth and therefore for all the transformations I have just listed – he says to the audience – where the long-term vision must be combined with immediate action: education and, more generally, investment in young people ”. A goal as concrete as it is “moral, because” depriving a young person of the future is one of the most serious forms of inequality “.
The hope is that, in the busy calendar of things postponed and to be addressed in September, someone will listen to him. For now there is not even a date circled in red on the agenda to discuss and be ready with the list of things to do for the appointment with European funds.
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