Italian bosses of the European Central Bank (ECB)

Article taken from the Morning Star

Dino Greco is the director of Italian communist daily Liberazione and a long-time figure in the Italian General Confederation of Labour, the country's main trade union.

He warns that the Italian bosses of the European Central Bank (ECB) are taking advantage of the weakness of Silvio Berlusconi in order to continue their undermining of the remnants of the welfare state.

A decisive turning point or a banal exercise?

With regard to the ECB's letter to the Italian government, Greco is very clear: "There's absolutely no doubt that the bank is behaving in an new manner. What it's proposing isn't an indication of a general policy but a veritable kit of the interventions that must be made - cuts in the welfare state, in social protection, in health care, an attack on the status of workers, the status that sets fundamental social relations, an attack on labour market guarantees, on retirement pensions.

"It's a kit that is perfectly inspired by free market ideology and which is akin to the social butchery that's already been tried in Greece. And, in passing, let's point out that what this neocon broth produces is so disastrous that it should incite us to the greatest prudence, given that none of us can guarantee that Greece will succeed in paying her debts with such an austerity programme."

Greco points out that the financial technocracy is now in the seat of power.

Finance is governing, it dominates and dictates its unconditional measures to governments and politicians, and it leeches assets like a vampire.

The fundamental political constant in this period is the ability of big finance to impose its free-trade dogma with neither limit nor perimeter.

In Italy this rests in a particular context - that of the extraordinary weakness of the Italian government, a corrupt clique for the rich.

Greco is keen to point out that it's not just his position as director of a left-wing newspaper which drives him to say this, but also as a citizen: "The abyss is really impressive - it's hypocrisy, cynicism and political inconsistency that characterise the country's rulers today. I think that you have to go way, way back in Italian history to find a situation that's as catastrophic as the one we're experiencing today."

So, in light of the fat cats and inner circles of ultra-business applauding the intervention of the ECB and lambasting Berlusconi's weakness, what does this domestic confrontation signify?

"Within financial powers like the Italian bosses' confederation Confindustria there is presently a lot of agitation. For them it's a question of getting rid of Berlusconi and his court, but in terms of an alternative, it's a shell game.

"They're envisaging substituting a free-trade alternative to this character, and what they're trying to do is to catch the ball on the rebound to dismantle everything that remains of the welfare state in Italy. They want to get their hands on the remnants of labour protection in this country. They've never accepted the status of workers."

Through 48 atypical contracts, the employers of the labour market are achieving flexibility - workers get into a company by going through this difficult and humiliating trial, practically on their knees, to the point at which employers are free to lay them off without any further obligation.

"The wider market is mimicking what Sergio Marchionne is doing in Italy's biggest factories - the Fiat factories," Greco continues. "It's an operation that's using the economic crisis to make the workers, the citizens, pay - and they're already paying a high enough price."

All of this begs the question of who's really governing Italy today? "There's been a lot of very hypocritical talk these days about a 'government of national solidarity.' Names are going around to run it. It might be Mario Monti, the former European Commissioner for Internal Market, Financial Services and Financial Integration, Customs and Taxation, rather than Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, the former head of the bosses' confederation and director of Ferrari. Be that as it may, this government of national solidarity will undertake exactly the recipe demanded by the ECB - that is to say a perfect free-trade catalogue.

"Today they're talking about raising the retirement age, so all pensions begin at age 65, increasing indirect taxes like value added tax - which are as you know the most unfair taxes - and reducing budgetary transfers to local government, which means an attack on public services and social protection."

Those who, in business circles, are envisaging replacing Berlusconi have absolutely no intention of adopting measures that would be very useful, such as going after tax evaders - over 230 billion euros vanish into this black hole every year - or instituting a tax on property holdings.

All that's needed is a 0.1 per cent tax on property holdings worth over a million euros to reap over 15 billion euros.

Obviously - since that won't happen - the Italian peoples' challenge is to promote and to produce a radical change.

To do that, all forces will have to come out on the playing field.

Italy's trade union movement is dramatically failing.

The biggest of the trade union confederations - the Italian General Confederation of Labout (CGIL), the one which has continually been targeted by Berlusconi these past few years - is in an absolute wait-and-see mode, incapable of envisaging effective action.

Greco is bitter about the lack of stance of this body. "What surprises me on the part of the CGIL is that it hasn't got its own position in this situation. It's been boxed into a scenario in which it backs up the proposals put forward by the Italian bosses.

"The left needs a proposal and it needs to make it come to life in a mass relationship. It's a sure thing that our forces have been marginalised, that they're still limited and shaken by the splits, which have not helped to reinforce the left in Italy.

"But there are also big movements which have succeeded in meeting together in the last few months. I'm thinking of the precarious workers, of the students, of the workers who, with the FIOM-CGIL - the metalworkers trade union - have had very strong mobilisations. I'm thinking of the militants of the movement for assets that are held in common who, by winning an overwhelming victory in the referenda on nuclear power and on water, have made a deep impression on people. To my mind, all this shows that in society there is more reason, more of a sense of reality, more consciousness that we cannot continue on this deleterious route, than there is in the field of political representation, even, obviously, on the centre-left.

"What we can do with our forces - which aren't extraordinary - is to produce counterinformation as a newspaper and to share with the citizens the certainty that it is possible to do otherwise, that this is not a passing fancy, that it is not the expression of an ideological thought that is cut off from reality. There are possible alternatives.

"Of course those who hold power today naturally can also dictate the agenda, but I have the impression that in September, when the accounts are going to have to be presented and when the balance sheet of this new, oh-so-cruel free trade acceleration is going to have to be drawn up, the renewal of social struggles will be absolutely necessary.

"I don't want to conclude with a slogan, but all the same - for a Greek-style recipe, a Greek-style answer is needed."

This article first appeared in l'Humanite.