By Stephen Clarke On Tuesday 26th February it emerged that the Italian elections had resulted in a hung parliament. Pier Luigi Bersani’s centre-left alliance won the lower chamber but failed to win a majority in the Senate. Even with the support of Mario Monti’s bloc, Bersani’s alliance would not be able to command a majority …
By Enrico Longobucco. Exactly 1 year ago, Mario Monti’s government took office in Italy after 3 ½ years of the third centre-right government led by Silvio Berlusconi. Most Italians were enthusiastic about this new government, which was not expressly chosen by citizens, but still perfectly legitimate under the Italian Constitution which states that the President of the …
By David Adelman. Recently an Italian court sentenced six scientists and a government official to six years in jail for their failure to accurately predict the magnitude of the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake. They were charged with manslaughter on the basis that they made “falsely reassuring” comments prior to the disaster which claimed the lives of …
By Enrico Longobucco. The current economic crisis is severely affecting Europe in both political and social terms. In this historical moment, characterised by instability and precariousness, intolerance is a given, that is, the difficulty to accept that not all people feel the results of this crisis the same way. The consequences are indeed more critical for …
By Enrico Longobucco. Reasons why a technocratic government does not represent a democratic deficit in Italy, but something that people need In recent days, a number of important Italian newspapers published surveys about confidence in Prime Minister Mario Monti. The approval rate for Monti seems to be about 50 per cent, the lowest figure recorded throughout …
