Italy's power in the Mediterranean

Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte

Rome [ENA] The trend and intensity of the deindustrialisation process of the Italian economy still manifested itself under new estimates. According to OECD's Capital Market Review the Italian economy still lags other large European economies. Improving the way capital markets function would help drive investment in the real economy, creating jobs and boosting productivity. The Italian economy in the last quarter fell by 0.3%

because people are not consuming and are afraid of future events. The International Monetary Fund has revised its growth forecasts downwards and forecasts a modest + 0.5% for 2020. But as the days go by, these forecasts also seem too optimistic, because of the upsetting global impact of the Chinese coronavirus epidemic. The excess of bureaucracy, the labor market and high taxes are the knots that asphyxiate the Italian economy and these haven’t been addressed till now.

Libya, crucial for security and for the main issue of the Italian political debate, immigration, is now under the control of Russia and Turkey, two countries against which Italy in 1855 and 1911 made war. In other words Rome has put its most vital question in the hands of Turks and Russians, who are certainly not enemies any more, but they have much more divergent agendas on Italy than those proposed for Italy by the European Union. The Libyan coast guard (i.e. Serraj government of Tripoli) no longer blocks migrants and they have started to flow back to Italy. The goal in the end would not be to invade Italy with millions of African refugees but more simply to ask for compensation to block them in Africa.

Turkey got between 6 and 10 billion euros from Germany to stop the flow of refugees from Syria, today for Libya (where refugees tend to be infinite) it could ask for much more. After all, why not do it? Turkey will carry out a service that Italy could not fulfill since the beginning of the first Conte government, the role of “superintendent” of the conflicts in Libya. If Ankara or Moscow do, why don't they have to be paid? In addition there is the coronavirus. On Friday, the Dow Jones closed with a roaring collapse of 600 points after a week of progressive falls on the Asian stock exchanges. The alarm for the virus is increasing in intensity and China has actually stopped.

People’s Republic of China is the first commercial power and the second largest economy in the world. A stop of just a few weeks, as expected at the moment, could provoke a recession. Italy seems particularly weak on this front. In less than a year Rome has made two changes. Government Conte 1 welcomed the Chinese President Xi Jinping as an emperor, passing over American and European objections. That is, Italian government promised the impossible: that Rome would have preferred Beijing to Washington or Brussels. This was simply impossible. Moreover, today less than a year later, Government Conte 2 has blocked all flights to and from China until the end of April. This is perhaps an excessive act for the present dangers.

It could seem a sort of hostility, especially because it comes just a few months after the visit of President Xi Jinping. The really crucial issue for the allies, Huawei's 5G in Italy, still remains not clearly resolved. On Huawei’s question Defense Minister Lorenzo Guerini, after returning from a trip to Washington, said security priorities prevail over others. Last but not least, A row over reform of Italy's statute of limitations continued to cause tension within the coalition supporting Premier Giuseppe Conte's government on Monday.

The reform drafted by Justice Minister Alfonso Bonafede puts the statute of limitations on ice after a first-instance court ruling and it came into force at the start of the year. The aim is to stop offenders getting off thanks to their lawyers' ability to draw out proceedings until the statute of limitations kicks in. But ex-premier Matteo Renzi's Italia Viva (IV) party has led opposition to the changes from within the government, arguing there is a risk of people getting embroiled in never-ending trials and the slow pace of Italy's justice system getting worse. The reform has also come under fire from judges and criminal lawyers, as well as opposition parties.