Amy Kazmin

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Giorgia Meloni believes Italy’s present political set-up is failing its citizens © FT montage/LaPresse/Getty

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Inside the museum that holds the Ara Pacis, a marble altar celebrating the peace and prosperity brought by the 40-year reign of Ancient Rome’s first emperor, Augustus, a group of prominent Italian business people were recently reflecting on the current state of the country.The assembled entrepreneurs and executives — supporters of a fledgling civil society movement called Io Cambio, or I Change — lamented the heavy toll that chronic political instability had taken on contemporary Italy’s prospects and international credibility.

In their formal discussions, and over sparkling wine, cheese and olives on the rooftop afterwards, they diagnosed what they see as the problem: Italy’s constitution, written after the second world war and the fall of Benito Mussolini’s fascist dictatorship, was no longer fit for purpose.…  Seguir leyendo »

Dr Maria Teresa Gervasi says women are having to choose between being a mother and working © Linda Scuizzato/FT

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Italy’s prestigious University of Padova made its name in the Middle Ages, when its medical scholars pioneered the dissection of human bodies to study anatomy.

These days, Dr Maria Teresa Gervasi, director of the medical school’s obstetrics unit, is dissecting the demographic crisis afflicting her university town.

An economically and culturally vibrant city akin to Oxford or Cambridge, Padova recorded a 27 per cent fall in annual births in the decade to 2020. Local primary schools are struggling to enrol children, raising the prospect of mergers or closures.

Yet the administration of the vast University Hospital of Padova — with nearly 9,000 employees, of whom 70 per cent are women — is resisting pleas for an on-site crèche to help staff reconcile child-raising with long, irregular hours as healthcare workers.…  Seguir leyendo »

© FT montage: AFP/Getty Images

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Polina Sydorenko, a 19-year-old Ukrainian student, was brimming with both hope and trepidation when she returned to Kyiv in late August, after five months sheltering from the war as a refugee in Italy. Yet her plans to pick up the pieces of her disrupted life at a prestigious university in Kyiv were depressingly shortlived.

Just weeks after her return, the veneer of normality that had been temporarily restored to the capital was shattered as Russia launched new missile attacks on key Ukrainian cities and critical civilian infrastructure — the most serious since the war began. The university where she studied drama shut down again.…  Seguir leyendo »

What an Italy led by the far-right might mean for Europe

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As European household energy bills surged at the onset of a blistering hot summer, Italy’s prime minister Mario Draghi framed the sacrifices he was asking Italians to make on behalf of Ukraine as a stark choice. “Do you want peace”, he asked in April, “or do you want air conditioning?”

Now, after the premature collapse of Draghi’s cross-party coalition in July, Italians are poised to vote for a new government whose willingness to put them through further economic disruption and sacrifices is in doubt.

If polls are correct, Italy will emerge from its general election on Sunday with a new far-right government led by arch-conservative Giorgia Meloni, president of the Brothers of Italy.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europe’s fight to stay united over war in Ukraine

EuropaUnión EuropeaPolítica Exterior, , , ,

Marlies Jakob was one of dozens of ordinary Germans who took part in a phone-in show on Deutschlandfunk radio last week about sanctions against Russia. Her intervention should alarm policymakers from Paris and Brussels to Berlin.

Jakob said she was prepared to take cold showers and wear three sweaters in winter if that would stop Russia’s war against Ukraine. But, she insisted, “the opposite is true”, adding: “Thanks to sanctions . . . prices are rising and Russia is raking it in as never before”.

She wasn’t the only one to hold that view. A listener called Werner Bauer said people might support punitive measures against Moscow for now, but as soon as higher energy prices start to feed through “the mood will change completely”.…  Seguir leyendo »