De Benedetti: “Meloni will crash because she is inadequate, a problem for Italy”

DOGLIANI. Giorgia Meloni “unworthy and inadequate”, the unions “selfish”, Giuseppe Conte “nullity and prime minister by chance”, Matteo Renzi “the most intelligent but to be forgotten”, Elly Schlein who “must improve in communication”. The engineer Carlo De Benedetti has it for everyone who, in his speech from the stage of the Dogliani TV Festival, offered a decisive and straightforward reading of the political situation in Italy and Europe. Interviewed by the journalist Daniela Preziosi, the publisher started by rejecting one of the objectives of the current government: «Let’s hope that Italy does not become a presidential republic. Wanting to change the governance Follia di Meloni, because if there is one thing that works in Italy it is the Presidency of the Republic ». Sergio Mattarella’s promotion is total: «he is the best president in history. Let’s hope it lasts and that the institution of the Presidency of the Republic continues».

The fate of the Meloni government
But is there an authoritarian risk in Italy? «The country has antibodies but it is also a country of people who get on the bandwagon – reads De Benedetti -. It is clear what Meloni wants: an authoritarian regime with all powers centralized in Palazzo Chigi, the so-called mayor of Italy.
The country is not right-wing but there seems to be no left-wing anymore. Meloni is herself a minority, but the total absence of a leftist proposal means that there is only hers on the table ». The engineer is clear who is responsible for this situation: “It is the gotha ​​of the Democratic Party, which has co-managed Italy without ever winning an election”.

Before analyzing the errors of the main center-left party, there are still harsh words against the Prime Minister: «Going to Catania where an entrepreneur like Libero Grassi was killed for refusing to pay the crazy man to the mafia and saying that taxes are a state lace is not just a disfigurement it is an offense to the country. It was an unworthy exit that is part of Meloni’s way of thinking and campaigning. You give the impression of going against your own function as prime minister. I hope he hit rock bottom.” Now his government has to tackle the issue of the Pnrr: “We will be saved by the unpreparedness of this band of incompetent people who govern us” is the hope of De Bendetti, who then goes on to envisage a not long future for this executive: “I am convinced that Meloni will crash into Europe because he is unable to keep up. It’s not an ideological problem, but one of preparation, of being suitable for the role. Hers is incapacity, not inadequacy for government. I say this with regret because in my mind, beyond being a person who tends to be leftist, I care about Italy. The thought that Italy will crash takes away the satisfaction of no longer seeing that little face wandering the corridors of Palazzo Chigi followed by the camera».

The Debenedettian scenario sees the return of a film already seen: «We will have to resort to another emergency solution, as Napolitano did with Monti and Mattarella with Draghi. This thing corrodes democracy. Draghi has done very well for Italy but has not done democracy a good service. And it’s not his fault. But it’s always better to go to the vote when a government falls, also to prevent people from increasingly distancing themselves from politics”.

Europe in danger
De Benedetti warns of the risk we will run in the European elections of June ’24: «Each of us must feel obliged to go to the vote because the future of Europe is decided, which is more important than that of Italy. To think that the right can have a majority in the European Parliament is truly a tragedy, we risk going towards the Europe of Nations. It would be the end of the European Union, just at a time when geopolitics is changing: the US is withdrawing, China is waiting for the big leap, and then there is India that nobody ever thinks about. They will be elections as important as those in Italy in 1948: one goes from one side to the other».

The European Union must know how to carve out its own space: «There are the USA on one side and China on the other who are waging war and we who are in the middle with our millennial European culture. But a country that no one thinks about is also growing, like India. From a geopolitical point of view, however, Europe counts for nothing because there is no real union and Great Britain is now out. Plus there is no European army. Europe does not have the means to do more on Ukraine”. However, he deserves a compliment: «He did very well to be on the side of the attacked instead of the aggressor. During the war, however, the European Union grew politically. The exemplary image is Scholz, Macron and Draghi on the train going to show solidarity with Zelensky ».

The minimum wage
For De Benedetti, the country faces two main problems: “How much work is paid and electoral absenteeism, which dangerously corrodes democracy”. It is also a problem of salaries: «In Italy a minimum wage is needed, but it doesn’t exist because the Democratic Party voted against to keep the union quiet, which wants a monopoly on the economic treatment of its members. In this blindness, I can understand the union’s selfishness but the position of the Democratic Party is insane”. The right does not want to take this path: “Meloni is against all social conquests, but for the Democratic Party it should be a priority”. The causes of the current stagnation in wages are not of today: «We are victims of globalisation, the union in particular. The West was convinced that it had found a mine of cheap labour, and so wages in Italy have not increased for twenty years. In Germany and France, which are leaders in the EU, wages are 40% higher than here. In Italy there are the wages of Romania, it is not sustainable. The minimum wage is not the solution in this sense – he concedes – but it is the elimination of an injustice. At some point people will riot. I want to see how Meloni will do then: you cannot remove the country’s discontent from TV, as Rai did with migrants instead “.

The center-left to rebuild
And we come to the political field in which De Benedetti recognizes himself. “When I wrote the book Radicality I said what things in Italy I think should be changed and I indicated the way, which must be radical and Christian Democrat”. The Democratic Party may have taken that direction with Elly Schlein at the secretariat: «I didn’t vote in the primary – he explains – because my wife was for Bonaccini and I for Schlein. Our votes would have been cancelled.’ Nothing against the president of the Emilia-Romagna Region: «Bonaccini is a good administrator in the Emilian tradition, Schlein is more suited to change. I am
in agreement with Berlinguer who said the Emilian administrators are better off staying in Emilia. And so it went, the only exception was Bersani. Bonaccini would have been a continuation, Schlein is a break. I’m radical.”

Time must be given to the new leader of the Democratic Party: “Schlein cannot yet be judged, but he must work on communication and be more present”. Let’s see if this time De Benedetti’s sensations are good, after the “accidents” he had with Walter Veltroni and Matteo Renzi: “Veltroni didn’t disappoint me – clarifies the editor -, but he was wrong to resign after the defeat in the elections in Sardinia. I am friends with him and I respect him. Renzi, on the other hand, was a blunder for me, I fell for it. He got so crazy that he turned a constitutional referendum into a referendum on him. He remains the most intelligent but has personal goals and not for the country, let’s forget that ».

What then is the road to take? «The center-left must start from a strong left-wing component that has a proposal for the country, then others will join. But with these leaders, the center-left will not be able to get back together. Giuseppe Conte is a nonentity, a mistake, a hiccup, a prime minister by chance. I hope the Cinquestelle will realize that Conte saved them from disappearing but he won’t take them into the future. I hope that Appendino takes his place, even if the 5S is a failed political expression ».