The View from Bologna

International Gombeens - Or why you can't buy drugs in the supermarket

Reading Shane Barry's commentary on financial scandals surrounding Bertie Ahern, it struck me that his posts could be applied, with virtually no changes, to the Italian situation. The Gombeen factor is to be found alive and well internationally - if that's any consolation to Mr Barry. Only the names and donation sums need to be changed.

This was brought home forcefully to this monkey while watching RAI 3's excellent Report the other night, which had for its subject party funding.

In the wake of the financial scandals that rocked the Italian republic in the early '90s (dubbed tangentopoli), public funding of political parties was scrapped. In its stead a system where tax payers could choose to direct a portion of their taxes to specific parties was introduced. Italian tax-payers, hats off to them, showed the parties the contempt they deserved and failed to donate significant sums.

What to do? Unanimously the parties voted to reintroduce public funding of the parties - to cover election costs, to aid democracy, to promote pluralism etc etc. They also, with the introduction of the Euro, decided to boost the amount received four times over.

Not content with this, they also casually recieve, with no scandal whatsoever, donations from big business.

Take one simple example. The head of the association representing pharmacists,FEDERFARMA, while objecting to the term 'lobby', admitted that they have spent up to 250,000 euro's spread out evenly to single politicans on either side of the left/right divide. Donations are given between a minimum of 1,000 to a maximum of 10,000 to individual politicians. With these payments, he explained "we hope to keep parliamentarians informed, to explain the perplexity that certain [legislative] measures can create for us".

So effective has the fiscally aided 'explaining' been that in Italy you can't buy paracetemol in the supermarket. Coincidentally Italy has amongst the highest drug prices in Europe.

Recent measures have been introduced, amidst much broo-ha, by the current government to pave the way for certain drugs to be sold in supermarkets, with the proviso that there is a qualified pharmacist on the premises.

Looks like the pharmacists have some hands-in-pockets explaining to do to avoid this perplexity.

Venetian Soul Brothers

Were you on the look out for the European equivalent to the impoverished blacks of America’s south, the spiritual soul brothers to the great musicians who turned poverty and the heritage of slavery into the blues, where would you look?

Let’s imagine for an instance that you settle on Italy. Would you choose the rock-steady beats coming out of Sicily in the form of groups like Aretuska? Or perhaps the thriving hip-hop scene in cities like Napoli, where groups like Co’ Sang chronicle a society in the trap of poverty and organized crime?

Not according to former Minister for welfare Roberto Maroni, a member of the Lega Nord party and enthusiastic player of the Hammond organ in blues band Distretto 51. Maroni, speaking to the Italian edition of Vanity Fair found himself on the defensive to a quick witted interviewer, when asked “Excuse me, though, your honour, but the blues is the music of the blacks: I don’t know whether your electorate will understand…”. The Lega is scarcely known for its race relations, with leading members of the party regularly employing terms such as ‘bingo bongo’ to refer to immigrants, and with its aggressive sponsoring of harsh immigration legislation. Maroni, though, without skipping a beat informs us:

“We Padanians [north Italians] consider ourselves a bit Negro, because we’ve been mistreated and exploited, forced to pay because someone is always eating at our expense”.

Ah yes, the Venetians and Milanese, the blacks of Europe. Then again, it makes as much sense as most of the other soundbites that emanate from the Lega.