Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: NYTimes di oggi

Che dire ancora???
January 4, 2002
Italy Has Some Difficulties Letting Go of the Lira
By MELINDA HENNEBERGER
On the Front Lines, Cashiers Propel the Euro's Advance (January 4, 2002)
ROME, Jan. 3 - Many Italians waited until the last minute to focus on the
switch from lire to euros and are having a particularly hard time now, in
the country that has been slowest to adopt the new currency.
"Always last in the class," was the headline on a front-page editorial in La
Stampa today.
In Brussels, the European Commission announced that only 10 percent of
Italy's cash transactions on Wednesday were in euros, compared with 50
percent in France and the Netherlands. The average in the 12 countries
making the switch was 20 percent.
Throughout Italy, there were long lines outside banks, post offices, toll
booths and train stations, and in several instances, the police were
dispatched to calm crowds of retirees waiting in line for their pension
checks. In Naples, a group at one post office initially refused to accept
their first checks in euros and tried to organize a rebellion.
Some of those waiting outside banks were understandably edgy because, bank
officials said, they included older Italians who were depositing millions of
lire they had been hiding in their homes for years, money they now have no
choice but to convert to euros.
Italy also lagged in its public relations efforts, as differences over the
euro exposed a split within Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's center-right
government.
While other European officials talked up the change, three government
ministers here groused openly about the euro. Then another member of the
cabinet, Foreign Minister Renato Ruggiero, denounced them for doing
"everything possible to belittle" the effort.
"The debate on Europe has been one of the most difficult for this
government," Mr. Ruggiero, a former head of the World Trade Organization,
told Corriere della Sera, the moderate Milan daily. "The differences of
opinion aren't marked, they are very marked."
He was responding to critical comments by the economy minister, Guilio
Tremonti; the minister of reforms, Umberto Bossi, who is also a leader of
the anti-immigrant Northern League; and the defense minister, Antonio
Martino.
"I hope I'm wrong," Mr. Martino had said, "but given the way it was
introduced, the euro experience could end in failure."
The problems here over the last 72 hours do not mean, however, that the
Italian public opposes the change: In a poll published in Corriere della
Sera today, 67 percent of those asked said they believed the euro
represented an important step toward a stronger and more united Europe.
But many Italians had said all along they would wait until Feb. 28, when the
lira will be completely phased out, to worry about the transition. Hence the
long lines, especially in Rome, Naples and Palermo, where some retirees
waited for as many as five hours before finally collecting their checks.
Older Italians seemed to be having the hardest time with the switch. At one
post office in Rome, a woman was in tears, crying that she was too old to go
back to school to learn to calculate her pensions in euros. After waiting
almost two hours, the crowd there began screaming "shame, shame" at
employees.
In Jesi, a small town in central Italy, a retiree who had just collected her
check tried to pay 600 euros, or $542, for a cappuccino.
There were also a number of complaints that the values on the new coins were
hard for many older people to read.
Travelers, too, were stuck in long lines, at toll booths and at train
stations, where automated ticket machines were malfunctioning. New
euro-friendly software provided by the state rail company was not working,
either, so travel agents were unable to issue tickets.
Even so, the problems were less severe than predicted.
Some delays had been all but guaranteed by government policy because many
store owners had waited to stock up on euros in order to avoid Treasury
Department fines of 25,000 euros for every bank note that went missing
before the Jan. 1 euro launching.
A European Commission spokesman said it was not at all surprising that Italy
was so far behind because fewer cash dispensers here were converted ahead of
the change and many businesses had chosen not to receive euros in advance.
Many Italians are still on vacation, however, because the Feast of the
Epiphany on Jan. 6 is a holiday here, so another test will come with the
official end of the Christmas season.
Despite the problems, many Italians seemed confident they would adjust just
fine, in time.
"It's the same as if you go to work in an English-speaking office," said
Mario Placido, 70, who was picking up his pension check after a 90-minute
wait at a post office in Rome. "At the beginning you continue to speak
Italian, and then you adapt."
Even some of those who were dragging their feet were not as unprepared as
they seemed. On Tuesday, at a snack wagon near Rome's Piazza Venezia, a
vendor blanched when presented with what he said was his first euro. "What
am I supposed to do with this?" he snapped. "I don't even know what it's
worth."
But when told that one euro was worth around 2,000 lire, he answered evenly,
"No, it's 1,936," before returning the exact change.

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 Che dire ancora???
Che sono scemenze. Gl'italiani semplicemente hanno una grande quantita' di
lire in contanti in tasca ed in casa, maggiore rispetto a chi fa piu' uso di
moneta elettronica: e logicamente hanno capito che devono principalmente
smaltire quelle lire. E' logico che questo richieda piu' tempo.
Andrea
salo...@mediacomm.it