Falling wages, uncontrollable prices and the blow of the war in Ukraine: Italy is more immersed in the crisis

Italy is faced with a political, economic and social situation complicated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has put it at the forefront of the full-blown challenge of the US-led western front with the support of 27 European countries. Union.

The government of Prime Minister Mario Draghi is preparing to make a third shipment of weapons that could include heavy weapons, but polls show that 46% of public opinion is against that assumption the risk, with Moscow even threatens nuclear responses.

The Italian Prime Minister will soon leave for Ukraine to meet with President Volodimir Zelensky in kyiv. He also plans to travel to Washington and meet with President Joseph Biden at the White House next Tuesday.

In both cases, it would confirm Italy’s commitment to punitive measures against Russia for aggression and the sending of general aid and weapons to the Ukrainian resistance.

Help families and workers

Draghi announced on Monday night a distributor order a bonus of 200 euros to 28 million Italians who do not earn more than 35,000 euros a year and other relief measures for the poorest families and workers who earn less, for a total of 14,000 million euros.

After two years of a pandemic subsiding (but the omicron virus continues to rotate) and now Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, energy and raw material prices have caused an outbreak of price increases affecting the famous sector.

Ang inflationwhich has fallen to zero in the past decade, has risen 6.7% in the past two months.

The government has established a 25% tax on energy companies that make extraordinary profits on rising energy and raw material prices to fund aid plans, worth 21.5 billion euros.

But Prime Minister Draghi said the 14 billion approved was added to the “15 billion euro assistance” granted in the last two months, which also includes companies.

Draghi clarified that they are extraordinary cost they are faced with not increasing public debt, which reaches 150% of Gross Domestic Product.

Economic and social earthquakes

But the seismic movements seen in the economic and social panorama have a strong impact on the political balance of the government.

Draghi is supported by a coalition of all parties except the right-wing Brothers of Italy, led by Giorgia Meloni, who in recent polls has emerged as the leading political force in Italy.

The ruling coalition is releasing strong cracks with a view to election campaign of the March-April 2023 general election.

Enrico Letta, leader of the center -left Democratic Party, again supported Draghi but asked him to “confirm a European leadership” during his meeting with US President Biden.

The 5 Star Movement on Monday refused to sign the social aid decree, which also includes companies.

Its leader Giuseppe Conte, a former prime minister who preceded Draghi, said his party did not accept the decision to build a thermal valoriser to burn the large amount of waste produced in Rome.

Conte also said, who no longer refrains from criticizing Draghi, that he is willing to chain himself in front of Parliament if the minimum wage law for workers is not discussed and approved.

The 5 Star Movement is against the shipment of heavy weapons to Ukraine and fears that the US intended a long war which will weaken Russia.

He believes that Europe will pay serious consequences if this line insists that there is an increase in large shipments of heavy weapons to Ukraine.

The latest statistics show that over the past 30 years, wages in Italy have lost 2.2% of their value. Instead they rose 30% in Germany and France, and 40% in the United States.

protests

Trade union centers have begun mobilizations to achieve huge increases in collective contracts, half of which have expired and need to be renewed this year, promising a period of strikes and demonstrations.

Carlo Bonomi, head of the business sector and president of Confindustria, said there was no room for companies to raise wages due to rising prices, although they had also received government subsidies.

Young people and women are the most affected by meager wages and worsening social problems. Another statistic reported that the number of employed had risen to 23 million people, although nearly half had specific fixed contracts.

The poor wage quality of the poorest sectors favors the campaign in favor of the minimum wage law. Confindustria industrialists are demanding to reduce taxes and rates that create a gap between workers ’incomes and what they receive.

Two million poor

They have already been announced two million people are affected by absolute poverty. In Italy there are two Citizenship Revenues for one and a half million families of workers and pensioners, which helps support four million poor people with a contribution of approximately 550 euros per month.

Increasing poverty and the social unrest they have grown rapidly over the past two years due to the pandemic.

The Catholic Community of Sant’Egidio, the main movement to help the needy, has its main base in the Roman neighborhood of Trastevere, where there is a soup kitchen that serves thousands of people.

In Rome, they explained in Clarion few volunteers, few help centers in Sant’Egidio, which have increased to 21 in recent years at the pace of growing need and social abandonment.

The market of Villa Gordiana is in the bustling Prenestino neighborhood of Rome the moving picture of the difficult situation. There are retirees displaying their items for sale, while vendors offer extreme price reductions to attract customers who are watching out of their pockets.

In the church of San Giuseppe there is a motto: “Food for all”. There is one of the centers of the Community of Sant’Egidio already they distribute bags of food.

One of the volunteers explains: “In the past, foreigners and the homeless were dominant. Today, more and more Italians are seeing insufficient jobs and pensions. Three years ago 10 or 30 people showed up, now more than six hundred ”. Not only are they given food, they even distribute clothes and cleaning supplies.

The same is happening in the rest of Italy, due to rising poverty and in sectors of workers and retirees who “cannot supply the need”.

Maurizio Landini, the country’s most important unionist, general secretary of the CGIL, called for measures that would fund the new increase in public debt, to help the growing suffering of workers. And he warns that there is a climate of struggle to renew expired salary contracts, of which there are many.

In Milan, there are a growing number of these centers providing food bags to complete the necessary meal for a family. Throughout Italy, volunteering provides an exemplary hand. Sant’Egidio has groups that manage providing food and medicine at home, but also making the purchases that singles need without helping them. There are volunteers who specialize in caring for the sick.

falling population

Difficulties can also be seen in negative demographic jumps. Italians are 60 million with a downward trend. The pandemic has accelerated the devastation due to the number of deaths and the decision to avoid childbirths, which have again fallen to less than 400,000 deliveries per year.

Moreover, there is an influx of young people emigrating in search of a better future, a portion of immigrants leave and others choose other latitudes. The result is that Italy now has 59 million inhabitants. It also lowered life expectancy to 82.3 years for men and 84 years for women in the country with the oldest elderly people in Europe, second only to the Japanese.

The concrete hopes are the same as before in what they call Bel Paese. After two years of plague, on May 1 there was a new opening and summer is expected to drive away the omicrom virus that dominates today’s pandemic.

Millions of foreign tourists are coming, except for the Russians who are not welcomed. And also Italians are launched to tour Bel Paese, enjoy its sun, the sea and see the wonders of the country which contains 60% of the world’s works of art.

Air travel is in full swing again. On June 3 Aerolineas Argentinas, returned to Rome, with three weekly flights between our country and Italy, after two years.

Rome, correspondent

CB