Social tensions are increasing in the south of the country. Many illegal workers are left without an income. The government in Rome responds with billions and food coupons.
–
Fear of unrest: Carabinieri mark presence at Palermo.
Photo: Epa
Does the mood change? In southern Italy, which has so far been somewhat spared from the virus, a large number of citizens are running out of money due to the shutdown of the economy, the legal and de facto also the illegal. Videos of desperate people circulate on the net at supermarket checkouts who cannot pay for their errands, are hungry but can no longer afford their food. A mix of fear and anger that is paving the way here and there and now prompting the Italian government to act quickly.
Without money at the till
One of these videos comes from Naples and was taken with a cell phone. In the first shot it shows Giuseppe’s shopping, it is a small heap at the end of the conveyor belt: pasta, tomato sauce, oil. The man is around forty, because of Corona he wears a protective mask. When he was supposed to pay, he told the cashier that he unfortunately had no money. Then the security guards come. “Calls the police,” says the filmmaker on his cell phone with an ironic undertone, “the man has no money! But look: there is only the bare minimum, no champagne, no wine. »
Similar scenes already existed in the suburbs of Palermo and Catania. Carabinieri are now standing in front of some supermarkets in Sicily as if they were guarding a safe. In Bari, citizens have lit a protest fire in front of a bank. The hardest hit are those who work illegally in normal times – without a contract, without rights, without any guarantee. An estimated 3.3 million people belong to this category in Italy. Some only have jobs in the shadow economy, others only make it through the end of the month thanks to untaxed secondary activities.
Italy has five million people in absolute poverty.
However, since freedom of movement was so severely restricted three weeks ago and the police keep an eye on everyone’s discipline, even with drones, many have lost their income from the unfair intermediate world. Especially in the Mezzogiorno. The “Corriere della Sera” lists some, at most semi-official, professional profiles, such as the illegal parking attendants and the sellers of smuggled cigarettes in the streets. Of course, everyone is aware that the shadow economy is a big problem and always has been. But this is not the best time for policy debates.
Anarchy feared
It is important to prevent the immediate despair from developing social tensions with great explosiveness, at least warned by the Italian Ministry of the Interior. A medium anarchy would also weaken the fight against the spread of the virus. More than ten thousand people in Italy have now died of Covid-19. If the pathogen spreads massively in the south, where health care is more fragile than in the north, the disaster would be much greater.
The government has therefore decided to send the eight thousand municipalities in the country a lot of money so that they can better care for the weakest in society. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said the mayors are like “antennas”, they know better than the headquarters who needs what. The state is sending subsidies of 4.3 billion euros that would have been due in May. Conte asserted that every bureaucratic hurdle had been eliminated, something like this had never happened before. Emphasis is also important because the Italians feel that they are left alone by their partners in Europe when they are in need.
25 euro vouchers
National civil protection provides the municipalities with a further 400 million euros in direct aid. The aim is to meet the most basic needs of the poorest population: in the form of 25-euro vouchers for food and medicine. Conte called on supermarket chains to grant customers who buy these receipts an additional discount of five to ten percent.
All families who are classified as poor in their region of residence receive vouchers: the index varies from region to region. According to the national statistics office Istat, all of Italy has five million people in absolute poverty. So 400 million euros is not long enough.
Donations are tax-free so that as much money as possible can be raised for emergency aid in private collection campaigns. In addition, in his appeal, Conte mobilized the “terzo settore”, the third sector – this is how the army of volunteers and their organizations in Italy is called, ecclesiastical and secular. They are supposed to ensure that food packages reach the needy directly. In Palermo alone, more than a thousand families have registered with the city and Caritas in the past few days because they no longer have enough to live on.
–
