The EconomistNovember 28th 2020 Europe 451S
ebastiano (“nello”) musumeci, the
governor of Sicily, counts off on his fin-
gers some of the many things he says his is-
land lacks: a hub-port to tap into the goods
traffic that flows from the Suez Canal into
the Mediterranean; an international air-
port (“Malta, smaller than the smallest Si-
cilian province, has one,” he notes indig-
nantly); a modern rail system (large
stretches of the existing network are either
single-track or unelectrified, or both); and
a motorway that fully encircles the triangu-
lar island (there is a long gap on one side).
“Then there is all the social infrastructure
we lack,” he goes on. Top of that list is a
shortage of nursery schools.
Europe’s efforts to recover from co-
vid-19 focus on poorer regions like Sicily.
One of the aims of its €750bn recovery
fund, currently blocked by Poland and
Hungary (see Charlemagne) but due to
come on stream next year, is to “level up”
the eu. The Italian government will soon
spell out to the European Commission how
it wants to spend its share of the loans and
grants on offer—more than a quarter of the
total, says the prime minister, Giuseppe
Conte. Last month, Sicily’s regional gov-
ernment sent Rome a list of schemes it
hopes will qualify for funding. But al-
though the island’s needs are great, the eu
scheme may not help to satisfy them.
Most of the projects the regional gov-
ernment wants for the island are large-
scale, long-term and designed to fulfil rela-
tively basic requirements. But the condi-
tions attached to the eu’s main recovery
fund prioritise schemes that are “smart”,
green and can be completed quite fast. Vin-
cenzo Provenzano, who teaches economics
at the university of Palermo, worries that
the regional government’s aims may be too
ambitious and that it ought to focus more
on the potential of the eu’s promised Green
Deal. “If we want to have immediate ef-
fects, we need to work on areas where Sicily
has a comparative advantage,” he says. Or-
ganic farming, which Sicily has a lot of, is a
perfect example.
Other doubts over Sicily’s capacity to
benefit from this unique opportunity have
a longer history. The island’s bureaucracy
is notoriously sluggish. It may struggle to
meet the deadlines set for having access to
the eu’s funds: 70% of the money has to be
committed, with contracts awarded and
signed, by the end of 2022, the remaining
30% within the year after. The entire fundhastobespentbytheend of 2026. Sicily
has in the past found it hard to devise pro-
jects suitable for eu funding and then
spend the money it has been given.
In any event, a worry persists that eu or
state money invested in Sicily will enrich
the island’s Mafia, known to affiliates as
Cosa Nostra (“Our Thing”). In this respect
there are grounds for optimism. Once the
beefiest of Italy’s three main organised-
crime syndicates, Cosa Nostra has been
losing ground since the 1990s to the Ca-
morra, which operates in and around Na-
ples, and to the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta.
Since the early 1990s police and prosecu-
tors have relentlessly pursued it. Under Mr
Musumeci, a former president of Sicily’s
anti-Mafia commission, they have had sol-id backing from the regional authorities.
One reason Cosa Nostra has retreated
from the streets is that it has increasingly
concentrated on white-collar crime. As
many investigations have shown, it is still
able to muscle in on the allocation of con-
tracts and has a special penchant for help-
ing itself to eufinancing.
That has prompted the creation of nu-
merous laws and regulations which are in-
tended to thwart the mobsters’ infiltration
of the legal economy but which also slow
down the approval of public investment
projects. Mr Musumeci argues that the pre-
cautions have become excessive. He wants
the central government to simplify the pro-
cedures for being granted the eu’s funds.
“We can’t not look to the future,” he says. 7PALERMO
Can a famously corrupt island secure
its share of the eu’s covid-19 fund?Sicily and EU cashNo cosying up to
Cosa Nostra
The Sicilians want moreE
mmanuel macrondoes not shy from
controversy. But the French president’s
recent dig at Annegret Kramp-Karren-
bauer, Germany’s defence minister, was
sharp. Earlier this month she wrote: “Illu-
sions of European strategic autonomy
must come to an end.” Since “strategic au-
tonomy” is a centrepiece of Mr Macron’s
European ambitions, he did not hold back.
Calling her views a “historical misinterpre-
tation”, he added pointedly: “Fortunately, if
I understood things correctly, the chancel-
lor does not share this point of view.”
Franco-German differences are not just
normal; they are the basis of the post-warFranco-German link. Usually leaders try to
avoid making disagreements personal, and
work through them in private. This time,
the spat is out in the open. As Europeans
prepare for an American presidency under
Joe Biden, it has exposed old cracks within
the European Union over how far Europe
should, or could, do more to defend itself.
Under Donald Trump, Mr Macron edged
the European debate in his direction. An
American president with undisguised con-
tempt for nato helped focus European
minds, and prompted concerns about the
solidity of the American security guaran-
tee. In terms of capacity, European defenceBERLIN AND PARIS
The imminent Biden presidency reawakens the European defence debateFrance and GermanyWar of words