Tim Parks: Holding Italy Hostage

That Berlusconi can indeed cause havoc is evident. He runs, in a sense owns, one of the two large parties in the present coalition government, which is struggling to introduce major reforms to stop the now dramatic decline in the Italian economy and finally inspire some confidence among foreign investors. If Berlusconi withdraws his party from the coalition, as he has threatened, it seems unlikely that another government could be formed with the present hung parliament. That would mean new elections, based on an electoral law (brought in by Berlusconi himself in 2005) almost guaranteed to create another hung parliament. The fear is that such an outcome will paralyze the country, taking Italy straight back to where it was two years ago, when pressure from financial markets seemed on the point of forcing it to seek an EU bailout or consider immediate exit from the euro. At present about 40 percent of the country’s young people are unemployed, while manufacturing output is 26 percent below its 2007 level.

Mein Blog befasst sich in einem umfassenden Sinn mit dem Verhältnis von Wissen, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft. Ein besonderes Augenmerk richte ich dabei auf die Aktivitäten des Medien- und Dienstleistungskonzern Bertelsmann und der Bertelsmann Stiftung.