100 posts
Rome view: Enrico Letta’s burden
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He is young and experienced, but - most importantly - he is a truly European. Enrico Letta, 46, the new Italian Prime Minister, is probably the last chance Italy has to avoid new elections. In aRead more…...
Beppe Grillo demands Five-Star Movement government and euro referendum
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Looking unusually smart in his dark suit, Beppe Grillo, along with some of his Five-Star Movement colleagues, this morning opened the second day of talks with President Giorgio Napolitano on forming the new Italian government.After the meet...
Can't wait for Italian election results? Here's a timeline
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Elections in Italy are always spread over two days. Yesterday, about 55% of Italians cast their vote - marking a sharp 7.4% decline in turnout compared to the previous general elections in 2008. Turnout was generally much higher in the North than in...
Point Counterpoint in the Italian Campaign
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Let’s forget about the Pope’s retirement, OK? Not that it doesn’t have huge implications for the theology of the Church and the role of future tenants of St. Peter’s see, but none of that is an electoral matter. And please, &h...
Encouraging Italy’s small businesses to go digital
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Italy has a long tradition of small, family owned companies becoming global leaders in fields ranging from furniture design and fashion to kitchen appliances and specialty foods. Part of their success is due to Italy's focus on creating networks of l...
Europe’s capital strike, Central European edition
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Even if Monti seems to have succeeded in dragging the spreads closer together, there are plenty of problems around the European economy. Bloomberg reports on central and eastern Europe’s economies in search of a growth model. So far, some of &#...
Unemployed Young Italians: Too “Choosy” to Stay in Italy?
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Recent statements by the Italian Minister of Labour's have created a controversy and online "craze" centred on chronic youth unemployment, while citizen initiatives are launched to keep young Italians from leaving the country in search of better oppo...
All roads lead to Monti?
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Political fragmentation in Italy increases the likelihood that Mario Monti will stay on after the election...
An Italian Spring? Italy’s Shifting Coalitions and Rising Populism
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We may be witnessing the demise of Italy's so-called Second Republic as proliferating corruption scandals alienate a disillusioned electorate.
Monday Update: Ukraine, Berlusconi (again!) and interesting reads
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Happy Monday. Yanukovych’s Party of Regions ahead in Ukraine elections With a third of the votes counted, President Yanukovych’s party is ahead in both the proportional lists and the single-mandate ridings. The opposition is denouncing wi...
Berlusconi Threatens to Topple Monti
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Political risks are on the rise in Italy after Silvio Berlusconi threatened to pull his backing for Prime Minister Mario Monti’s technocrat government. WSJ’s Stacy Meichtry discusses Mr. Berlusconi’s threat— which came a day after the former...
Italian Short-Dated Debt Costs Ease Despite Berlusconi Vow
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Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesFormer Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The Italian Treasury paid the lowest funding cost on six-month paper since March, shrugging off fresh political threats to the country's coalition, but the fragility o...
Rome fears shockwaves from Sicily vote
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Article by Guy Dinmore published on ft.com on October 28, 2012 If Italy is a mirror of Europe with a prosperous north carrying a south mired in decay, corruption and recession, then Sicily is its Greece. Read the article.
Why Silvio Berlusconi's jail sentence matters, even though he won't serve it | John Hooper
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Regional elections will test whether Italians have lost patience with the sleaze and corruption of Berlusconi and his partyThere is rich irony in what has happened in Italy this week.Ever since Silvio Berlusconi decided to enter politics 19 long year...
Twitter reacts to Berlusconi’s four year jail sentence for tax evasion
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Incredible – Berlusconi sentenced to 4 years prison for tax evasion – plus an extra 6 months for not predicting earthquakes. — John O’Farrell (@mrjohnofarrell) October 26, 2012 Can it really be true that Italian court has sentence...
Berlusconi gets four-year jail term (but likely won’t serve time)
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Silvio Berlusconi’s conviction for tax fraud certainly warmed Scrapbook’s cockles cold Friday afternoon. A look through the history books, however, shows that the former PM has a habit of getting away with it: Year: 1990 Conviction: Per...
AGCOM consults on TI's NGA Bitsream Reference Offer
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The Italian NRA launched its consultation (in italian) as regards Telecom Italia's NGA Bitsream Reference Offer.
AGCOM approves TI's Bitstream Reference Offer for 2012 and adopts transitory measures for 2013
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The Italian NRA approved (in italian) Telecom Italia's Bitstream Reference Offer for 2012. The agency has also adopted transitory measures (in italian) as regards the applicable rates until the 2013 review of markets 4 and 5 are concluded. AGCOM has...
Italian NRA consults on digital terrestrial channels LCN
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AGCOM launched its consultation (in italian) concerning the automatic logical canal numbering of digital terrestrial channels.
Italian NRA launches review of SMS termination market
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AGCOM launched its review (in italian) of the SMS termination market.
Italian NRA launches consultation on fixed call termination rate
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AGCOM launched its consultation (in italian) concerning the fixed call termination rate.
Organised crime in Italy
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Italy is the location of one of the five criminal hubs in the EU, according to Europol. Criminal hubs are concentrations of criminal logistics which receive illicit flows from numerous sources, and whose influence extends throughout the EU. The Sou...
Wave a banknote at a pundit and he'll predict anything | Simon Jenkins
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Of course it is outrageous to jail scientists for honest errors, but it is legitimate to hold them to some accountOn the evening of 5 April 2009, Luigi Guigno of L'Aquila in Italy was phoned by a sister terrified by tremors under their village. He to...
Who will be the face of Italy's third republic? | Tobias Jones
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Berlusconi will not stand for re-election. Respected figures on the left are falling like cards. There is a longing for fresh leadersIt's almost exactly a year since Silvio Berlusconi resigned as Italian prime minister, and on Wednesday he confirmed...
Mediobanca Says Rome Should Jump Ahead of Madrid for Help
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Italy should move before Spain and apply for help from Europe’s financial-aid scheme hinged on the European Central Bank, according to the country’s premier merchant bank.
Italie : « Une école de qualité, c’est l’Europe qui nous le demande » ?
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En Italie, le mois d’octobre est marqué par deux marronniers : les feuilles mortes qui tombent, et les étudiants qui manifestent.
One of Rome’s best kept secrets: Ostia Lido off-season
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Fall days don’t come much more beautiful than the one we had in Rome yesterday. A gently warm temperature and perfect sunshine created irresistible weather for spending time outdoors. We headed off for a waterfront lunch and a leisurely meander...
Put ‘Jobs First’ Mr Monti says Italian union as it holds national rally
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Workers from Italy’s crisis-hit firms will be out in force Saturday at a national rally in central Rome to demand an end to prime minister Mario Monti’s austerity policies that have cost the country hundreds of thousands of jobs and are l...
Italy’s Gold: What’s the Use?
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Can Italy and Portugal use gold to cut their borrowing costs? A link to a column and a paper from a German academic.
At stake: the credibility of Italian politics itself
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In half a year’s time, Italians go to the polls ones again to evaluate the country’s turbulent politics. What is really at stake, argues Youropa’s Italy correspondent Carlo Cerutti, is the credibility of politics itself. ...
Commission approves Italian nga plan for Sardegna
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"The European Commission has found an Italian project to finance a high speed broadband network in Sardinia to be in line with EU state aid rules. The cost for the project, known as BULGAS/FIBRESAR, will be reduced through cost-saving opportunitie...
The Crisis of the Italian Second Republic: In a right mess, but are the alternatives any better?
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History, as Marx taught us, likes to repeat itself: the first time in the form of a tragedy; the second, a farce. What may be unique about Italy, though, is it’s often hard to distinguish between the two. This is a country where the situation is of...
The association of Italian Zero Waste towns has been created
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In a meeting celebrated in Capannori on October 13 representatives from 16 Italian regions agreed to formally constitute the Association of Italian Zero Waste Towns. Currently 107 towns in Italy alone have committed to move towards Zero Waste and pha...
Italy: Time to take a radically new political and moral turn
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By Dino Greco The carousel of cuts – under the guise of the spending review – has begun to spin. The axe is again lowered on health (a 1.5 billion-euro amputation to spending that had already been reduced to a minimum), help for disabled...
Berlusconi's farewell?
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Over the past few months, Silvio Berlusconi repeatedly suggested (but never 'officially' confirmed) that he intended to run for Prime Minister in next year's general elections. However, he now seems to have backed down over his planned return. In a T...
Sliding to the Periphery – Italy, the Crisis and Europe
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Europe was meant to offer the prospect of completing the modernisation of Italy, consolidating an advanced economy, expanding welfare and democracy. Instead, there’s been economic decline and a degradation of democracy while Europe is becoming...
An Answer to Italy’s Forgotten Southern Question
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IN THE RADICAL PRESS / IL MANIFESTO By Tonino Perna In the 1960s and 1970s reports by the Association for the Development of Industry in the South (Svimez) on the health of the Mezzogiorno were followed with great attention and aroused a great politi...
Not quite a U-turn, but still big news from Monti
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Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti has made an important announcement regarding his political future after next year's general elections.He said,Under special circumstances, which I hope won't...
Resistance: Politics and Economics
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In what seems to be a great development in Italian politics, 37-year-old mayor of Florence Matteo Renzi is roaming around Italy, visiting 20 cities in 2 days, in order to promote himself as the Democratic Party (PD) candidate for the Italian presiden...
Silvio Berlusconi is foolish to bash Germany for 'dictating' to Europe | Alan Posener
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The former Italian leader has called Germany a hegemonial state, yet the new, 'soft' euro is not what Merkel wantedSo Silvio Berlusconi says that Germany is "a hegemonial state that … dictated to the other European countries the rules of rigour and...
Can Monti renew Italy's love of Europe?
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By Ivana Bartoletti on Wednesday, 26 September 2012 The Italians used to be the most Euro-enthusiast of all European nations. In 1989, when a consultative referendum was held to gauge people's opinion about co...
A German euro exit not science fiction for Il Cavaliere
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The Huffington Post has decided to go for a lengthy interview with Italy's former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for the launch of its Italian edition. Il Cavaliere sticks to his form on the euro, firing a salvo at Mario Monti (the Italian election...
Two questions for Mr Mario Monti
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A major network asked me to suggest two questions that might be put to Mr Mario Monti, Italy’s Prime Minister. Here are the ones I came up with. What do you think his answers will be? Question 1: Italy and the ECB’s OMT program: Will it help...
Italy: Workers Occupy Sardinian Coal Mine
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When threatened with the future closure of Carbosulcis coal mine in Italy, miners from the pit occupied their workplace some 373 metres underground in protest. The occupation may have ended but over all the situation remains uncertain.
Flaviano: The Quiet Innovator
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After years of silence and hide Italian innovators are re-emerging on the international scene. You must be familiar with Draghi, the head of the ECB, and Monti, the Italian PM. The first is leading the rescue plan for €, and the second one is savin...
Italy’s splintered radicals unite to fight for labour rights
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Ever since the dissolution some two decades ago of the Italian Communist Party, once western Europe’s largest, Italy’s radical left has been splintered and weak. Today you have two communist parties (Communist Refoundation and the Party o...
Q&A: Italy’s Economy Minister Vittorio Grilli
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Vittorio Grilli, Italy’s Economy Minister, is at the forefront of the country’s efforts to repair an economy that has grown less than any other euro-area country since the single currency was launched. Read selected excerpts from his interview wi...
Riace, Calabria, where immigrants are welcome
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Until ten years ago Riace was one of the many Calabrian villages destined to disappear due to high emigration rates. Today it is one of the most famous towns in Europe, repopulated by immigrants. A closer look into this huge scale, real life social e...
Italy’s technocratic government is providing ample opportunity for challenges from parties outside of the mainstream.
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Last year, Italy’s populist government under Silvio Berlusconi was replaced by a technocratic one with no electoral mandate under new Prime Minister Mario Monti. Duncan McDonnell argues that opposition to Italy’s technocratic government means th...
In praise of … Bedford's Italians | Editorial
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It is hard not to regret the Italian government's decision to close its special consular facilities in the town at the end of this monthIt would be hard to deny that Italy, with a public sector debt of more than £1 trillion, needs to trim its public...
