Giorgia Meloni is holding on, for now. Despite a slight dip in the polls, mutinous mumerings from her coalition partners, and a growing unease among the electorate, the Italian PM is, miraculously, still standing. So where, one wonders, is the opposition? Well, this week, one answer to that question became painfully clear when the Constitutional Court denied the PD’s Vincenzo De Luca the right to run for a third term as the President of Campania in this autumn’s regional elections. De Luca is a divisive but popular figure. Best known for his media soundbites (during Covid he threatened to send police “with flamethrowers” to tackle illegal parties) he’s also a competent enough statesman who has, for years, enjoyed strong public support, particularly among poorer voters. Now, with his name out of the running, the centre left needs to find a replacement fast, and guess what? They’re stalling. There are a couple of names in the ring including Roberto Fico (M5S) and Igor Taruffi (PD), but the whole operation is embarrassingly disorganized. The party leaders are squabbling in the media, there is no sense of a programme, no sense of a common direction and no sign of the much-mythologised campo largo. What a waste! Meloni is in a vulnerable position right now, and Italy urgently needs alternative proposals for how to govern the current crisis. The problem is, there aren’t any. Millions of Italians are wondering how progressives can reconcile their differences on Ukraine, how they can maintain some kind of moral integrity in the face of Donald Trump’s agenda, how they might together reform the tax system to properly fund public services. De Luca was a divisive and sometimes patronising President of Campania, but he won voters’ support through a mix of pragmatism and consistent messaging. Whatever you think of the man, Schlein, Conte, and others, could surely learn something from his successes.
Unsurprisingly, newspapers have been focused on the trade war this week and in particular on the impact that tariffs may have on the banking sector and government bonds. Italy’s projected growth is down from 1.2% to 0.6 % according to the latest forecasts, and this figure is likely to drop further still. In such circumstances, the government is rightly asking how they might cover shortfalls to prop-up the economy. So far, the possible “solutions” are worrying. On Tuesday, Adolfo Urso, the Industry Minister, gave a statement at the Salone del Mobile in Milano in which he announced that the Italian government is planning to ask the EU to suspend the “crazy” Green Deal which he claims is “crippling entire industries.” The Green Deal, as a reminder, is not only a package of punitive cuts, it is a programme of investments in clean energy, sustainable transport, and green tech which together will help the continent achieve the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. The fact that Italy’s far-right administration wants to step back from these commitments is not just unethical, it’s against the nation’s own economic interests. Not only can the Green Deal provide jobs and help start-ups, it will also help the country become more resilient against inevitable future natural disasters (which are costing the state more and more every year). To put it simply: if the government wavers on this serious issue, we will all be paying the price down the line. What else can I say? Let’s hope as talks progress that policy-makers see some sense.
There’s been a flurry of interest this week about the opening of ‘La Dolce Vita Express’, a new collaboration between the Ferrovie dello Stato, Orient Express and the hospitality firm Arsenale. To be honest, I’ve found all the PR absolutely insufferable. This will be Italy’s “number one luxury train”, apparently; a remake of old designs which will “revive the glamour” of “classic rail travel”. The project’s Creative Director, Paolo Barletta, has defined it as being “kind of like the experience of a cruise ship, but instead of being a boat cruise it’s a rail cruise,” all of which sounds… rather suspect and utterly banal. The train’s route passes through 14 regions, from Veneto and Liguria right the way down to Basilicata and Sicily. Tickets start at an eye watering EUR 3,500 for a single Pisa-Rome leg (a journey which, by ‘normal’ rail costs between EUR 15-30.) So please, forgive my ungenerous mood, but why do we all keep falling for this stuff? Most of the passengers so far seem to have been journalists and influencers producing content that will be consumed, by and large, by people who will never be able afford the service. Perhaps it’s time we turned our collective attention elsewhere?
Art & Culture: a barrel of laughs
It’s been a quiet-ish week on the arts front. With Italy gearing up for the Easter holidays, the country seems to be winding-down for a break. The Salone del Mobile is ongoing in Milan until the 13th April but that’s not quite my area (I recommend following ELLE’s coverage if you’re interested). Vinitaly has also just finished; and reports from wine experts, like this one, make for interesting reading. For my part, I just want to share a little comedy. A few months ago, the stand-up star Luca Ravenna posted the full recording of his 2024 show Red Sox on YouTube. I finally got round to watching it in full a few days ago, and it’s excellent! Ravenna does enjoy flirting with a line that, at points, gets alarmingly close to, say, Ricky Gervais. He is a bit on the “edge lord” spectrum (though, thankfully, unlike Gervais, he usually falls on the right side of bad taste and is rarely offensive without good reason). In any case, I think Red Sox is a lot of fun. It’s a wide ranging show which takes in politics, protest, Matteo Salvini, the state of modern America, millennial sex culture and the world of online scammers (though the best material, really, comes from Ravenna’s asides about everyday life in today’s Italy). The whole thing lasts an hour and a half and, in my view, it’s well-worth sticking with to the end. You can watch it on YouTube, for free, here.
OK time for some music. Bais is a new-ish project by the Veneto-born singer-songwriter and composer Luca Zambelli. His schtick, in a few words, is to produce “indie dream pop” for social media natives. His new album RADICAL POP is out at midnight and based on the clips already available online this is a sunny, sparkly record, filled with gentle, confessional lyrics that defy the doom and gloom of our times. Bais’s music is more about vibe than virtuosity. The singer elegantly mixes the hook-based melodies of, say, Elodie or Annalisa with global influences from Everything, Everything or Foals, and he does so with a certain degree of understated skill. The lead single, ‘Parole Piccole’ is a textbook Calcutta-esque Italian indie hit with a singing line that, during the verses, sounds remarkably like Morrissey [listen at 1.30 via the link below, if you don’t believe me]. Anyway, click here to listen to the full album tomorrow and in the meantime complimenti Luca for this excellent new sound. Hoping to catch you live sometime over the summer.
Recipe of the Week: marinated peppers, blitzed white beans and anchovies
This week’s dish is more of a serving suggestion and creative prompt than a recipe per se. Still, I hope it might inspire at least some of you here who are looking for a quick and easy midweek dinner. I found this suggestion on instagram via an account by food blogger Kitty Coles; and I was struck right away by the simplicity of ingredients, the evocative balancing of flavours and, most of all, the elegant presentation. I’m a big fan of small plate-cicchetti-tapas style food and I’ve been enjoying cooking more vegetable forward dishes lately too, so a few days ago, in lieu of an ingredients list, I set out to try and create the dish for myself from scratch. I took a few packs of beans and blitzed them with olive oil, garlic, lemon juice and water to form the base. Meanwhile, I charred a few red peppers in the oven, peeled them and left them to marinate in parsley, lemon juice and mint for a few hours. After that it was just a matter of assembling: puree and peppers topped with cured anchovies and a little olive oil. Delightful! If you’re a fan of Southern Italian and/or Spanish flavours I definitely recommend giving this one a go. Here’s the link, and here’s kittycoles’s instagram where you’ll find some similar suggestions.
I’m Jamie Mackay, a UK-born, Italy-based writer, working at the interfaces of journalism, criticism, poetry, fiction, philosophy, travelogue and cultural-history. I set up ‘The Week in Italy’ to make a space to share a regular overview of the debates and dilemmas, innovations and crises that sometimes pass under the radar of our overcrowded news feeds, to explore politics, current affairs, books, arts and food. If you’re a regular reader, and you enjoy these updates, I hope you’ll consider becoming a supporter for EUR 5.00 per month. I like to think of it as a weekly catch-up chat over an espresso. Alternatively, if you’d like to send a one-off something, you can do so via PayPal using this link. Grazie!