Quo Vadis, Italia Nostra?

very January the Italian think tank Eurispes issues a state-of-Italy report based largely on economic statistics compiled over the previous 12 months. This year the organization caught a bum day, the 25th: Down came the center-left government of Romano Prodi, its second collapse in two years. His definitive ouster arose from poisonous bickering among the overpaid and mollycoddled party chiefs who for decades have formed the truculent backbone of Italy’s ruling class.

Eurispes statistics generally pay little attention to the country’s rich and famous. They instead reflect the country’s lower middle class and its distended underbelly, the millions of workers on and off the public books. It establishes trends and sets mood through numbers. While the opening sentence of last year’s report offered backhanded optimism — [“Italy] seems anxious to put behind the atmosphere of decline that has accompanied it in recent years.” — this year’s account was the statistical personification of misgiving.

Italian citizens and its governing class, the report said, had become estranged from one another. “They’re like a separated couple living under the same roof with nothing in common,” said Eurispes President Gian-Maria Fara. Forty-five percent of Italians felt poor. Nearly 80 percent worried about the economy. Prepared before the latest crises, Eurispes’ Italian snapshot was merciless:

• 38.2 percent of Italian families can’t cover monthly costs. Half its members borrow to get by. On average, gas, water, and electricity cost 25 percent more than in 1997.

• Five million Italian families live barely above the poverty line. Only a tenth can save anything.

• Twenty million workers, half the work force, are underpaid. Italian workers earn 25 percent less than French workers, 10 percent less than Germans.

• Off-the-books labor brings in 35.5 percent of the nation’s gross national product. Criminal activities bring in 11.3 percent. The €725 billion total is more than half of what Italy produces annually.

• Italians are in debt. Loans have doubled in a year. Outlet store and sale purchases are up. Paying medical bills in installments is commonplace. “There’s no economic vibrancy, only necessity,” said Eurispes.
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