Welcome back to Italy, the country where the distance between tragedy and farce is shorter every day. As for the title of this post, the 2018 political standoff goes on with more and more shades of political degradation with no end in sight.
Yesterday our president Sergio Mattarella refused, once for all, to greenlight the start of a new government. In our constitutional laws, he was authorized to do that, but it is the first time ever that the motivation of such denial was tied to the possible destabilization of the Euro currency and to the general connection between our national economic system and the EU financial system. That’s thin ice at best.
In the 70 years lifespan of our Constitution, it wasn’t the first time that a president refused to attribute the role of a minister to someone. In our political scene, the president is a referee of a sort, with a position that has always been used to apply moral suasion on the political parties, to smooth some rough spot in the new governments. Usually, that happened beneath the scenes, far away from the eyes of the public opinion. But this time it was different.
I’m not a lawyer, nor I am an expert in the ways of political power in Italy. But I know the recent history of my country. I also understand well my fellows’ citizens, and I can feel the heat of something terrible waiting to happen. You see, this is not the first time that Italy found itself at a political crossroad. Symbolically speaking, I can smell the blood in the air. The kind of blood that drives predators from many miles away, ready to rip apart our collective flesh.
This is not about a motion of impeachment against our president (I don’t think that there’s the ground for such a thing), nor this is about the name of the next PM. The political pendulum, powered by years of bad decisions and worst external influences, is in full swing – posted in the direction of renewed nationalism and toward a model of state-oriented development that is in full collision course with the EU directives.
The final consequence of what happened yesterday is that the next political campaign will not be about what’s best for our country, but it will be about our will to stay in the Eurozone or not. This is madness. There are many short-sighted politicians (in and out Italy) and a score of economic influencers (also in and out Italy) that want a clash between our national institutions and the EU organizations, centered on the wrong item (the Euro currency) and not about the EU-sponsored politics.
All of the above is a giant weapon of mass distraction, maybe the worst ever in my country. We need to reorganize, to improve, to develop in a better way. We don’t have the time, nor the resources, to run around following false flags. The next government, whoever will lead it, must act in a hurry to stop the consequences of the stupid deals we made with EU (automatic rise of the VAT, respect of unrealistic balance targets).
Look at our recent history and remember my words. I can smell blood.
Angelo Benuzzi 
The so called “Bel Paese”