Renzi explained his Government programme before Parliament on 16 September./ Photo: Palazzo Chigi (License CC).
Darío Menor. Rome.
“I can’t supress laughter when I hear that our model should be Spain”. On 16 September, the Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, appeared before the Italian Chamber of Deputies to report on his Government programme, and took the opportunity to deliver a blow to their European associate.
These words evidence two aspects of the young leftist leader’s politics: he’s vulnerable to envy, and has no qualms when it comes to distorting information.
“I have a great friendship with the Spanish president. But when I hear that our model should be a country that has double the unemployment that Italy does”, Renzi said, in the midst of applause from his party’s deputies, “I worry about what cultural and economic model we want to face and carry out today”.
His declaration is an answer to Brussels’ continuous calls for him to follow Spain’s example and bring about the reforms necessary for economic reactivation. There is no sign of it so far: it is forecast that the Italian GDP for 2014 fall by 0.4%. Spain, on the other hand, predicts a 1.5% increase in theirs.
We are faced with a new case of sorpasso between two countries that have been eying each other over the years to see who gets the better grades. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Romano Prodi already flexed their muscles in 2007 to see in which country the GDP per capita was highest. Years later, with both risk premiums out of control, the fight became about who had the least bad results. Being a handful of basic points beneath the other was sold as a triumph in Madrid or Rome.
According to La Repubblica, the active population in Italy is half that of other countries with twice as much unemployment
Renzi has been incapable of putting his envy to one side and abandoning this one-upmanship race. On this occasion, the First Minister has maneuverer to avoid the sorpasso by using poisoned data, since it is not true that Italy has half as much unemployment as Spain. Even considering that the consecutive Spanish governments are champions in the mistreatment of the labour market, the Italians aren’t far behind.
According to official unemployment figures, in Spain it is at 23.5% and in Italy at 12.6%. At first glance, it is half, just as the leftist leader of the Democratic Party claimed. However, what he did not speak of in his appearance before Parliament is that this is not comparable data, since among Italians there is the so called cassa integrazione: unemployed people who receive a subsidy from their previous employers and that in the statistics do not appear as unemployed, despite the fact that they are.
As was highlighted by La Repubblica, a more realistic overview of the situation is provided by the figures published by the OECD on active population in proportion to the total number of residents. Italy and Spain coincide at 36%. Another, very illustrative, reference is the percentage of the active population among those of working age; in Spain it is at 74%, in Italy 63.5%.
“The Italian active population is the same, or lower, compared to other nations, with unemployment rates double or more. The system excludes more people than the official numbers give”, La Repubblica warned.
