fleetwoodmac1975

The thing is no Italian was asked whether he wanted the euro or not. This is essentially an antidemocratic tool imposed on several countries. As far as Italy goes, the likes of ciampi and prodi made this deal, the people were not asked to vote on this subject.
I think you are getting too bogged down on the corruption thing, Italy has always been corrupt but enjoyed economic prosperity during those times of corruption. Take the1980s for example, when I grew up I remember many families having the casa al mare in montagna and many millions of lira in the bank in the form of bot ccp et etc. And the 1980s class of politicians was certainly corrupt....

Let's not think the euro is this sacred cow or a bastion of morality cause it isn't. To me it makes no difference if the corrupt is berlusconi or Mrs lagarde.

primularossa

Dear All, it is a long time since I read the forum for the last time...today I found a couple of minute to read some of most recent posts.
I have not time to answer in detail to this thread, I hope I can do it next week from Doha.

I just say now - in order to clear all doubts - that in Italy the "referendum" can only abrogate an existing low and that it is not possible to have a referendum on economic matter. So, no direct voting on Euro/non Euro is possible. It is only possible to vote against the economic policy of a government in political elections. But due to the fact that mainstream TV/newspapers and so on (also La Repubblica) always recited the Euro "mantra", people are convinced that we cannot do without it, that we "lived above our possibilities" and other "truisms".

Forgive me, I hope to come back to this thread some of the next days with a more articulated post.

ciao, Primula

isshin

You're absolutely right, Primula
It is true that the Constitution doesn't allow to have a referendum on economic matters, but we could have one on the ratification of Treaties by the Parliament, and we didn't.
We've been fed with all this eurosh*t and we haven't seen or tried anything else than the German dictatorship.
The "lived above our possibilities" is also a big fat lie. Unlike other debt-driven and letshaveamortgageforeverything cultures that you can find around Europe, private savings in Italy are quite high and families tend to own their houses.
Sadly we gave away our sovereignty, and now not being able to spend a cent to promote growth and employment is what we've been rewarded with. Saluti

fleetwoodmac1975

Exactly. We are not a democracy. It makes me f...k laugh this thing about living above our possibilities. I mean in the 1980s the politicians were as corrupt if not more than today yet there was a lot of prosperity in Italy, but those were times where at least in foreign policy we had a pair of bollocks, I remember the lampedusa case and craxi telling Ronald Regan to f...k off.

gioppino

The institution of the Euro is part of the Maastricht Treaty and therefore it cannot be subject to referendum (art 75 Costituzione : "Non è ammesso il referendum per le leggi tributarie e di bilancio [cfr. art. 81], di amnistia e di indulto [cfr. art. 79], di autorizzazione a ratificare trattati internazionali [cfr. art. 80]."


I remember when the Euro was officialy introduced in 1999 (we had bank accounts in Euro back then but cash transactions in Liras) the public opinion was enthousiast and only ultra-Left fringes complained about the Euro. We knew it would have made us uncomptetitive but we hoped that it would have increase our intra-EU turnover. It actually did, but to our disantvantage. We import from Germany more than we should and we don't export as much as we should, but this is part our fault because we are not good at marketing ourselves.

fleetwoodmac1975

We don't market ourselves but we shoot ourselves in the foot.
Look at Servegnini, this imbecile does nothing but denigrate his own country in the media, he writes on the FT bad things about Italy all the time, never anything positive.

Regarding marketing, I visited some hotels and resorts in popular resorts in the FE recently as part of my job and I'll let you into a little secret, Sardinia is much better and its beaches are in no way inferior to those I have seen in the FE. Yet I've seen many adverts on TV for resorts around the world yet nothing on Sardinia. We are sitting on a gold mine in Italy but we don't do anything to promote it.

gioppino

Literally, because we have the 4th biggest gold reserves in the world.

I think it has to do with the fact the most Italians don't speak a reasonable level of English, therefore they stay behind the news and have a difficult time to be heard.

As you have mentioned that "useful halfwit" Severgnini, his English would be decent to work in a factory in UK, but he's considered a genius.

When you attend G20, UN or EU negotiations you need to be able to speak to the English speaking counterparts on a peer-to-peer level, instead we have that Mr Bean-lookalike "Renzie" who is a basically a muppet and not even funny.

isshin

As regards Severgnini, i think he's considered a genius because he keeps writing on FT the side of the story everyone wants to hear.

An example: the Guardian online hasn't done any coverage of the two young italian girls kidnapped in Syria or the reporter killed in Gaza, still they keep blabbering about pickpockets in Rome and the following reaction by Marino.

fleetwoodmac1975

the guardian only covers Syria under the orders of the establishment. No mention of course that the only one who is fighting on the Christian side in Syria is guess who...Mr Bashar himself. All this talk about helping Christians in Iraq (ergo oilfields in Irbril), fair enough, but lets forget the Christians in Syria who are being slaugthered by ISIS / Nusra, David Cameron does not bother about those...

fleetwoodmac1975

Just had a look at the news, I think the british foreign office should worry more about its own citizens decapitating foreign journalists in me rather than a handful of bag snatchers in Rome...

ononno

Would have thought that on balance there are likely to be far more tourists, of whatever nationality, in danger of being pickpocketed in Rome; than of foreign journalists being decaapitated in middle east. The UK government is doing its institutional duty by giving foreign travel advice; whether it be to watch out for pickpockets in Rome, or anywhere else; or to avoid Syria for beach holidays at the moment. And you know that as well as I do.
bye bye dicette l'inglese.

primularossa

...but you cannot compare the two facts!!!!!

sunnysider

Hi ononno

I'm sure you meant well but I am afraid you are allowing him to do one of his bizarrely motivated thread diversions - all of which sign off with an equally bizarre attack on supposedly disloyal Italians of one ilk or other.

Anyone got any information/reasoned views/Italian clips on Italy and the Eurozone?

Whatever happens it seems pretty clear that the next year is going to be, er, interesting, what with Renzi and Draghi's meetings etc etc.

isshin

Let's hope that the UK foreign office will give "travel advice" to black citizens willing to travel in Missouri, as well as the ones in Rome.
Or there are good friends and bad friends?

37100

What a ridiculous direction this thread has taken! Heaven forbid we musn't offend or upset the Italians. The FCO issued a warning based on the large number of stolen passport reported to the consulate. The consulate even handed out leaflets in the squares.