The EconomistAugust 1st 2020 Europe 412 debts. Mr Conte has a fragile grip on office,
with a wafer-thin majority in the Senate,
but one of his first moves on returning
from Brussels was to reach out to Silvio
Berlusconi’s increasingly moderate Forza
Italia party for extra support.
To some extent, Italy’s spending priori-
ties will be dictated from Brussels; and the
frugals have won an emergency brake on
disbursements if things go wrong. That
could cause problems. The country has for
years fought against demands for unpopu-
lar structural reforms in return for eucon-
cessions. But the aims of the recovery fund
include making Europe greener and more
digital. That chimes with the priorities of
Mr Conte’s government, especially its larg-
est component, the Five Star Movement.
A serious drag on economic growth is
the time Italians waste interacting with the
state. And it has increased. The proportion
of people who report spending more than
20 minutes when queuing at registry of-
fices has risen by more than two-thirds in
the past 10 years. Parliament is debating
legislation sponsored by the minister for
innovation and digitalisation, Paola Pisa-
no, to make the entire range of government
services accessible via an app. She says she
will be pushing for ngeu money to be
spent on improving connectivity and digi-
tal education, particularly in the south of
the country, where it is most lacking.
That raises perhaps the most important
question of all. Italy exemplifies the eu’sdi-
vision, with a north almost as rich as Ger-
many and a south nearly as poor as Greece.
If the ngeu can be used to pull the south
closer to northern levels of prosperity, it
would solve many problems, not just for It-
aly. But it has been tried many times before
and has always run into the same obsta-
cles: a mentality of dependence on the
state, poor infrastructure and organised
crime. The shortcomings of the south are
also the main reason for Italy’s dire record
of using past eufunds. Italy cannot afford
to miss out in the same way on its biggest
opportunity in 70 years. As Ms Pisano says:
“This is a train that will only pass once.” 7
In need of some assistance
ItalySources:Eurostat;European
Commission;BankofItaly *Forecast5.0
2.5
0
-2.5
-5.0
-7.5
-10.0
2119172015GDP
% change ona yearearlier* *160
150
140
130
1202119172015Gross gov ’t debt
As % of GDP**T
he wavesof an epidemic tend to rise
like a tsunami—slowly, almost surrep-
titiously, before a precipitous surge. In
parts of Europe there are now fears that co-
vid-19 cases may again be nearing a menac-
ing inflection point. In Spain, daily new
cases in the week to July 28th have risen
sharply to nearly ten times the low they had
descended to in June, when the lockdown
was lifted. Less dramatic but worrying in-
creases in cases are starting to bubble up in
other European countries.
For the moment, the spikes in Europe
are largely confined to a few hotspot coun-
tries, regions within them or even towns.
Infection rates are particularly high in the
Balkans and in Spain, which has notched
up about 27 cases per 100,000 people in the
past week. The corresponding case rate in
Germany, France and Italy is in the single
digits. In both low- and high-rate coun-
tries, the bulk of new cases is often concen-
trated in particular locations. Roughly two-
thirds of Spain’s cases in the past week are
from just two regions, Catalonia and Ara-
gon, which are home to a fifth of Spaniards.
About 20% of Italy’s cases in the same per-
iod are in the Emilia-Romagna region,
which has just 7% of the population.
The rise in cases across Europe is not
surprising, says Hans Kluge of the World
Health Organisation. As lockdowns were
lifted and people resumed travel and min-
gling, both imported cases and the local
spread of the virus have pushed tallies up.
What is different now is that testing andtracing systems are catching local spikes
early, and authorities are battling them
with localised measures. On July 27th Ant-
werp, Belgium’s most populous province,
announced a night curfew for non-essen-
tial movement and made masks manda-
tory in public spaces; people were told to
stay at home as much as possible. Covid
clusters have emerged across Germany, in
care homes, workplaces and private par-
ties, forcing officials to impose localised
lockdowns. In mid-July the Catalan au-
thorities reimposed a strict lockdown in
Lleida, a city of 140,000. Nightclubs in Bar-
celona and other hotspots in Spain were re-
cently shut or ordered to close early.
Varying covid-19 rates across Europe
have prompted countries to make some
tough choices. In a normal year, some 18m
Britons seek fun in the sun in Spain, along
with lots of other northern Europeans. But
as cases in Spain notched up, Britain and
Norway swiftly brought back quarantine
for people coming from Spain. Vacationers
to Greece from some Balkan countries
must now show proof of a negative co-
vid-19 test to enter the country. That has
dealt a blow to whatever remained of the
foreign tourist season in much of southern
Europe. But there has been a collective sigh
of relief among health officials watching
with trepidation clubs and beaches crowd-
ed with drunk foreigners.
That, however, still leaves the matter of
intensifying local transmission. A pattern
that cuts across Europe is that new cases
have been mostly among people in their
20s and 30s; clusters linked to large parties
have become a recurring theme across the
continent. German politicians have
warned that citizens are growing compla-
cent about the dangers; surveys confirm
suspicions that fewer people are avoiding
crowded public spaces or private gather-
ings. Dr Kluge says that the priority in Eu-
rope now is to ensure that young people
comply more with such precautions. If that
fails, he says, it won’t be long before infec-
tions spread to older, vulnerable people.
As the summer starts to wind down, the
need to contain outbreaks across Europe
will become increasingly acute. A huge
worry in all countries is the autumn, when
people start to spend more time indoors
and flu and other respiratory infections
rise as they do every year, filling hospital
beds. Countries that reach that point with a
high plateau of covid-19 cases could see a
return to exponential growth that over-
whelms hospitals again. Across Europe,
they are better prepared for a second wave
than they were for the first, with new mea-
sures to curb the spread of covid-19 in hos-
pitals and extra beds and field hospitals
that are mothballed now. But how hard
they are hit will depend largely on how
much their citizens choose to play by the
rules of the new normal. 7A surge in covid-19 in Europe is mostly
under control. That may changeCovid-19 in EuropeStill with us
0255075100Covid-19, confirmed cases per 100,000
July 23rd to 29th 2020Sources: ECDC; Eurostat; national
statistical & health agencies; The Economist