Newsgroup: it.politica.polo
Titolo: The Times (superlungo)

We should chant Forza Italia, Forza Britannia
Anatole Kaletsky
Silvio Berlusconi is not only Prime Minister of Italy and, as of this week,
the man at the helm of the European Union. He is also Italy's richest and
most controversial private citizen, a billionaire who abused his media
monopoly to get himself elected Prime Minister. This was not just a matter
of personal vanity: according to many of his compatriots, Berlusconi's real
reason for becoming a politician was to protect his business empire, or even
to keep himself out of the courts.
Is this a man fit to lead Europe in the exceptionally challenging period
that lies ahead? To preside over a new constitution designed to inspire the
citizens of Europe? To welcome ten new member countries out of the dark
valley of dictatorships and personality cults into the sunlit uplands of a
democratic community dedicated to the rule of law?
The answers to all these questions, from Tony Blair and the British
Government, should be an emphatic and unequivocal "yes".
The idea of warmly welcoming the Italian presidency of the EU and Berlusconi
's political role will go against all the instincts of the British political
establishment and the Foreign Office, not to mention the class warriors who
are rising again to dominance in the Labour Party.
For the politicians, diplomats and opinion formers of Brussels, Paris and
Berlin, to ask questions about Berlusconi's "fitness" is to answer them. The
spicy cocktail of anxiety, innuendo and condescension doing the rounds at
diplomatic receptions this week was beautifully distilled in a few toxic
sentences in Tuesday's Financial Times:
"As Italy takes over the presidency of the European Union today, alarm bells
are ringing around the Continent. The concern is at Silvio Berlusconi taking
the chair. Seasoned observers doubt his objectivity. They question the
coherence of his Government. They worry that the media billionaire will be
distracted by personal priorities when he should be focusing on
international affairs. They fear the worst."
Why, then, should Britain welcome the Italian presidency and encourage
Berlusconi to hang on to the personal control over European policy, which he
wrested from the Italian diplomatic establishment when he appointed himself
Foreign Minister nearly two years ago?
Because Berlusconi, for all his personal defects, represents exactly the
sort of political vision that Britain has been trying to promote in Europe
for decades.
The Blair and Berlusconi Governments have much in common in their attitudes
to the key issues facing Europe today. These range from free trade and
globalisation to labour regulation, tax, welfare, pensions and even the need
for radical reform of Europe's most important economic projects: the Common
Agricultural Policy (since neither country is a huge surplus producer) and
the euro project (since Italy has suffered more than any other EU country,
with the possible exception of Germany, from the loss of national control
over its monetary and fiscal affairs).
But the reasons why Britain and Italy should see themselves as natural
allies in Europe run much deeper than the economic philosophies of their two
governments. Both countries now have more common ground on most EU issues
than either country shares with Germany or France. While this consonance can
be seen most clearly today in foreign policy and economics, it stems from a
deeper issue: neither Britain nor Italy can ever be fully equal partners in
a European Union that is dominated by the relationship between France and
Germany. But if Britain and Italy can co-operate with each other and attract
other allies, especially in Scandinavia, Iberia and Central Europe, they
will usually be able to lead Europe in their direction, as they did (for
better or worse) on Iraq.
Before I explain the consequences of this controversial statement, let me
emphasise that this is not a "counsel of despair". The reason why Britain
and Italy can never be equal in the present Franco-German Europe is not
because Germany and France are more powerful, more successful or richer than
either Italy or Britain. They are not. Germany is somewhat more populous,
but on almost all other statistics Europe's four largest nations are
essentially in a dead heat. In terms of living standards, economic output
and even potential military power, Europe's "big four" are closer to one
another than any of them is to the true global superpowers such as America,
Japan and China on the one hand, or to the middle-size countries such as
Canada and Spain.
Why, then, am I so convinced that it will be impossible for Britain or Italy
to transform the Franco-German partnership into a foursome or a ménage à
trois?
In the case of Britain, the answer is quite simple: Britain doesn't really
want that kind of intimacy with France, Germany or any other country.
Although the British people are very happy to co-operate with their European
neighbours on projects of mutual advantage, they are unlikely ever to
endorse a genuine "marriage" - a relationship so deep, so intense and so
enduring that vital national interests would be willingly overridden to
preserve and tighten the bond. This is what Germany did, for example, when
it agreed to join the euro and what France did when President Mitterrand
reluctantly decided to support German reunification. And this kind of
national sacrifice is what Blair has explicitly promised never to make,
either in the euro decision or in the bargaining on a new EU constitution.
Whether or not you believe that Blair will truly "fight for Britain's
interests", as he always promises, is immaterial for the purpose of this
argument. My point is simply that even the most idealistic Europhile
politicians in Britain understand that voters reject the rhetoric of
national sacrifice for a greater European goal.
The most fascinating question in Europe today is whether Italy may move
towards a similar position of semi-detachment from the Franco-German axis.
This possibility is the real reason for the horror in Brussels about the
presidency of Berlusconi. Until Berlusconi no Italian politician dared to
question the polite fiction that Italy had an equal status with Germany and
France, as a "founder member" of the EU, and therefore that it should always
move in the direction set by the Franco-German "motor".
This was a fiction. Italy always punched below its economic and demographic
weight, which is almost identical to France's. This was partly because its
political shenanigans were regarded with condescension by the other EU
founder members, but also because Italy was (and still is) a somewhat
artifical appendage to the other EU founder members, all of them compactly
positioned, both geopraphically and historically, around the Franco-German
axis.
The question now is whether Berlusconi, in deciding to pursue a more
independent Italian policy within the EU, is merely grandstanding for the
sake of personal vanity (as everyone assumes in Brussels) or whether he is
tapping into a genuine resurgence of national feeling and a desire for
greater autonomy from Brussels and the Franco-German axis.
I cannot claim to be an expert on Italian culture, but some parallels with
Britain do suggest that the Berlusconi phenomenon reflects something of the
national mood.
Italy, like Britain and in contrast to Germany and France, has always been
an outward-looking trading nation, geographically on the periphery of
Europe, a cultural and ethnic melting pot. Like the British, Italians are
individualistic people, suspicious of government, resistant to regulation
and more comfortable with chaotic, unpredictable change than the
rationalistic French or the orderly Germans.
For cultural and historical reasons such as this, there is a natural
community of interest between Britain's liberal, decentralised vision for
Europe and the free-wheeling instincts of Berlusconi's Italy. Of course,
Berlusconi may turn out to be an aberration and Italy may eventually adapt
its national culture to the rationalistic bureaucratic Franco-German model.
I suspect, however, that Berlusconi may be closer to the true Italian
culture than most of his critics, even in his own country. As a Briton and a
European I certainly hope so. An outward-looking, liberal, decentralised
Europe, inspired by the cultural openness and individualism of Britain,
Italy and the other peripheral countries, could be a truly exciting place to
live in the coming decades.

 ha scritto nel messaggio
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 Alex.
In un NG in cui tutti citano caterve di giornali stranieri, conoscere
l'inglese mi sembra il minimo......

 ha scritto nel messaggio
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Guarda che fai confusione. Questi non citano i giornali stranieri, ma
l'Unita', Repubblica e Corsera :-)
Mac  :-)

 Mac  :-)
No, no, se parlano male di Berlusconi vengono citati pure quelli spagnoli...
:O) Ma non credo sia sbagliati dialogare sulle posizioni dei quotidiani,
solo che andrebbe fatto con più onestà intellettuale.

 wrote in message
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