“MEF base here: public investee, if you are there, answer”. It hadn’t happened for years. This is the sense of a letter, polite in the tones but unequivocal in substance, signed by the new general manager of the treasure, Francis Sorowho made all the “delegated emperors” of the State Participants skip the chair.
An alarm clock, rather than a letter. A dry call to a forgotten principle: the MEF exercises, by law, the strategic address and control over the companies participated by the State (Legislative Decree 175/2016). Stuff harmful majesty, now.
In the parallel kingdoms of the public establishment, a few lines were enough to unleash the panic: “Do you answer? Are you ignored?”. However the message came clear: In the government the air has changed.
The deadlines of the PNRR loom and, from Brussels, signs of disorder arrive. Raffaele Dense It turns empty. Minister Foti does what he can. And Tajani thought it well to send, right now, the only truly competent diplomat – Michele Ghiggia – in Egypt.
As if that were not enough, confirming the irrelevance we enjoy, the Italian ambassador to Brussels, Vincenzo Celeste learned, from Bloomberg, -e without any notice – of the very hard letter from the EU Commission on the Effaire Unicredit. A break. Things like that would never have happened at the time of his predecessors: Umberto Vattani or Fieroci.
Still, something moves. Finally, the recreation seems to have ended at MEF. And who has favored that system now risks. Marcello Sala, Bored former DG of the Treasury and for years, the manager of public argentoria has been in the sights of Consob. He was appointed president of Nexi like “independent“Although until yesterday it was an integral part of the ministerial machine. Independent from whom? From Guzzetti, his historic mentor? Or by Giorgetti?
The strategic partners have turned into small medieval fiefdoms. Their choices today go from funds, business banks, law firms, union colleges and armored board of directors, with councilors who are satisfied with some targeted or benefit hiring.
Avoid the progressive dismantling of the state companies, and their role as a fundamental implementing tool of the country’s economic policy, was to be an opposing point for a “nationalist” government – at least on paper – such as that of Giorgia Meloni. A great liberal like Guido Crosetto often repeats it. And a government that claims stability as its distinctive feature should remember that the much vituped governments of the First Republic – although unstable in the offices – had a clear industrial and infrastructure vision.
An example: the sun highway was built in just eight years. Then, to blow the counter, three untouchables arrived, with the gaze turned more to Paris, Brussels, Washington and Beijing than in Rome: Ciampi, who sells off the public banks; Prodi, who dismantled Iri and gave Telecom and motorways; Draghi, who packed everything and closed the game.
The Golden Share? A fig leaf. A legal illusion. They still tell us that “the market is always right” but it is not so. Especially if the market is made up of investors interested in the economic return only between quarterly dividends and maximization of capital gains.
The state could, all right, to give vision and horizon long to the investee companies. But there is a detail: skills are missing. Those who drive the investee today often have curriculum built more in the lounges of the boards of directors than in construction sites. In the meantime, Europe is invoked as alibis for the inaction. But it is a paradox: France and Germany, the EU load -bearing columns, have defended and enhanced the state presence in strategic sectors (and not only). While Italy has interpreted Europe up to self -harm.
But you can change approach: not leaving Europe and playing like others. Without a strong public shareholder, Italy has long been an easy target for hostile acquisitions, silent climbing, who sells know-how, also by those European countries, France and Germany in the lead, strong of a safe domain on the bureaucratic machine patiently built in years and years of sending to Brussels of their best officials and civil servants (we have sent those “to be placed” or worse).
Even the PNRR could – and perhaps it could still – be the lever for reconstruct a public industrial fabric It is strategic. Instead, too often, it was used as a mere passive spending plan, for the benefit of the usual large suppliers. We need a radical change of course. And fast.
The climbing zigzag of the investeee is also the reflection of a political class without “social soul”, which used them as an electoral ATM. There are no new ministries. Neither direction cabins or ministerial crisis tables opened by Adolfo Urso: an effective department for strategic participations would be enough, to which all public companies must answer.
But above all, a new IRI is needed. The acronym should not even be changed, only the meaning: institute for industrial relaunch. A national spa, which notices all the strategic participations of state, acts on the free market, but maintains 51% public.
To have a new IRI, it is also necessary to rethink as once to a new training model: an “Italian ENA”, on the French model. In the past, public intervention had worked. Eni, Enel, Casmez: they were public economic bodies that have pulled the development of Italy until the 1980s.
Casmez built aqueducts, schools, hospitals, industrial networks: the only works still visible in the South. Then, nothing. Italy, with its capitalism family And fragile, he needed great public subjects capable of directing development. Not having understood it was a tragic error.
The end of the direct intervention of the State in the South – replaced by the regions – caused the disaster that we see today. Giulio Tremonti tried to reverse the course, transforming the CDP into a new IRI. Too bad that over time, he has shocked himself. In recent years by former European banker, without the slightest industrial culture, has been used as the MEF avatar, to park participations to be monetized. The CDP did not affect even the appointments. He only obeyed.
If Meloni really wants to change the system, a spot intervention on Mediobanca or a Moral Suasion at the top is not enough. We need a structural reform of economic governance and the return to a true multi -year economic policy.
We are still at the mercy of the usual dominant ropes today: Bassanians, Feesians, Draghians. They are still all there. Giorgia if you are beat a blow.
Luigi Bisignani for the time
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