Aart Heering
'This has been a prosperous year for freelancers!' says a journalist friend with satisfaction. To then explain to me, rubbing my hands, that in 2018 he wrote about 12.000 lines, roughly 40 newspaper pages, more than twice as many as in 2017.
It reminds him (and me) of the golden years of yore, when Berlusconi and his escapades were always good for a message, analysis or simple gossip. It was indeed the year for me. A political landslide, quarrels with Brussels, natural disasters, a collapsed bridge, not to mention the purchase of Ronaldo by Juventus, which has become completely out of reach in the Serie A rankings.
Elections 2018
It started with an election campaign in which the two 'anti-system parties', the Lega (ex-Lega Nord) and the Five Star Movement (M5S), worked vigorously. I personally witnessed in February in southern Caserta how M5S leader Luigi Di Maio – who promised every voter a basic income of €780 – was hailed by a frenzied audience as a true Messiah.
At the same time, his colleague Matteo Salvini, with hard-hitting anti-immigration stances, skillfully responded to the grievances of a population who saw new loads of refugees landing on the Italian coasts on TV every day and felt horribly abandoned by Europe.
It seemed certain that the Partito Democratico of the good Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni and Berlusconi's Forza Italia would lose, but the magnitude of the victory of the two populist parties surprised everyone: M5S 32% and Lega 17%, while the PD went no further. rose to 19% and FI remained at 14%.
But even more surprising was the outcome of the three-month difficult formation: a coalition of Lega and M5S and thus the first populist cabinet in Western Europe. Two parties with different objectives but a common aversion to the 'established elite' had found each other and thus the 'horror scenario' so feared in Brussels, but until then thought improbable, had become reality.
Italian budget
The new government paid little attention to European fiscal discipline. After all, both Lega and M5S had made expensive election promises. Citizenship pay, flat tax, lower retirement age, tax debt cancellation, all the measures that cost billions that actually don't exist, but made for strong statements like 'We have abolished poverty!' (Di Maio) and 'We will not be bully by Brussels!' (Salvini).
The squabbles over the Italian budget thus degenerated into a months-long European thriller, which only ended at the end of December when it turned out that the financial markets were also losing confidence in Rome. Italy will eventually spend a little less and the European Commission has once again given the country the benefit of the doubt.
Disasters in 2018
That was a good thing, because in the meantime the country has also been plagued by an unprecedented series of disasters. Most spectacular was the August 14 collapse of the Ponte Morandi, the huge viaduct near Genoa on the highway from Rome to France, killing 43. Reconstruction could take years and meanwhile other viaducts all over the country have also proved unsafe and closed.
More than a month later, severe weather and flooding from Piedmont to Sicily claimed 37 lives and some 14 million trees were felled in the north by local hurricanes.
Meanwhile, Rome is the scene of a permanent waste crisis and in these last days of the year, Mount Etna is also playing up again with a series of eruptions and disturbingly powerful earthquakes.
Indeed, a prosperous year for reporters, but nerve-racking for Italian citizens. So let us drink to a less eventful 2019!
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