Today’s pill #221: In the EU, it’s getting worse and worse
And yes, how can I not share what a famous publication wrote just a year ago, and it’s getting worse and worse. By now it’s clear that we totally depend on the “reforms” imposed by the EU that have nothing to do with our priorities and lives. Actually even worse, having the church(es) and politicians lined up, acting as promoter(s) of this European ”architecture” that makes us subordinate people; and they even allow themselves to campaign for the coming elections, talking about decisive votes, calling us to restore the European ”dream”, for the principles on which Europe was born and the fruits of this process of welcoming, integration, peace, democracy, freedom, development, the social protection system and blah blah blah… I’m so tired of this empty rhetoric, as inequality, injustice, discrimination, lack of jobs and money theft are at the highest ever.
“Everything according to predictions. It is happening, no more, no less, what we have predicted since the moment the EU and the national governments of the EU signed the agreement that gave birth to the Next Generation EU. This time too they tell the story that Europe covers us with money, but Italy doesn’t know how to spend it. In reality, this fairy tale is like a song by Mogol and Battisti, it’s always good, it’s a success, you listen to it thousands of times and you never stop liking it. From the times of my youth — alas, passed a while — we are told that European funding, in Italy, is wasted punctually and regularly, they remain unused, because here there is bureaucracy, our public administration does not work, we are an inefficient country, a little too levant, very little european… Let’s understand each other, it’s a half truth, only that, Orwell would say, half of the truth is more important than the other. Because, then, digging, it turns out that, in reality, it is the European bureaucracy that is, to say the least, brain-wrenching and that, in order to get community funding, you have to face an obstacle course, like what is done in training Gurkhas. Just to give some examples, so we are concrete and understand each other: to have the third tranche of the funds established for the PNRR, Italy should have had, by the second half of 2022, achieved 55 goals, among which competition reform (which is not really a big deal, but equivalent to the coup of grace for our small and medium-sized enterprises), the reform of the justice, which we have been trying to do only for a fortnight (the referendum on civil responsibility of magistrates was held, if I remember correctly, in 1987), then making investments in various sectors, such as cybersecurity, tourism and, fasten your seat belts, present some projects like the Bosco dello Sport in Venice. Now, as you can understand, it must be wonderful to know that in Venice there is the Bosco dello Sport and that the number of foreign tourists has increased, when you spend a night in the ER, because there is no medical staff, or while you pay for medical care (as happens to 6 million Italians) and go to see a specialist in a private clinic, because in public health the waiting list is too long. Or even when they tell you that some neighborhoods in your city are no man’s land because there are no cops and Carabinieri, that your son’s school is falling apart, when you see that the streets you walk everyday look like they’ve been bombed etc. The point is that if you explain to the EU that you need more nurses, more doctors, more men in uniform, agronomists to reforest and take care of the greenery in the cities, small public works like those for the ordinary maintenance of the roads, water or sewerage, you say that these needs are not. They are ’projects’, they are, on the other hand, ’current expenses’, in the logic of today’s economists, and all money is wasted. So, we invest so much in cybersecurity and we don’t spend a dime on the problems of our everyday lives. We don’t have equipment in hospitals for diagnostic examinations, but we do large works that are very expensive, often harmful, useless or that we could, however, safely do without. It’s the development model where you have to pay for your life-saving drug, but you have the TAV, the Strait Bridge, the broadband and maybe a cycle track in every city. If it suits you, please carry on. I will not follow you. If I were to follow you, I would no longer have the courage to look in the eyes of that parent who, a few days ago, told me that his daughter suffers from a rare form of celiac, survives only thanks to particular supplements that cost a lot and he has to pay for them. I don’t know if I’ll be accused of being a communist or a fascist this time. You do it; for me, it’s indifferent.”
