Pirelli entered the automobile market in 1901 with the Ercole – “Hercules”. The name of this first Pirelli car tyre, which was patented that year, evokes the strength of the legendary Greek hero who managed to strangle two serpents even as a baby, and later performed the famous Twelve Labours. It was no easy task perfecting this new tyre and successfully launching it on the market. There were countless challenges to overcome as the new cars that were coming onto the roads in those early years of the twentieth century accelerated increasingly fast, reaching higher speeds and carrying ever greater loads. Tyre technology had yet to be invented, and the most critical hurdle was to keep the tyre firmly on the rim while driving. Pirelli engineers and technicians thus came up with the idea of two large rigid “heels” that would be wedged into the rim channel. The heels fitted precisely, enclosing the inner tube and forcing it to maintain its circular shape. A coupling system than was more efficient than that of the company’s competitors showed how Pirelli was focused on technology and innovation. Already in 1902, and then again in 1903, Pirelli published a complete instruction manual, which explained in a clear, detailed manner how to mount and remove the new tyres. Changing tyres was a fairly complicated operation in those days, and it required time and patience, but this was amply rewarded by the freedom and shorter travelling times enjoyed by the first adventurous motorists.

The Piero Pirelli Institute opened in Milan in 1958 as the company’s vocational training centre. It was dedicated to the memory of Piero Pirelli, who passed away in 1956. The building was designed by the architect Roberto Menghi, who worked with the company again a few years later, when he created a product that was to have a modern, practical design: the polyethylene container for liquids that was exhibited at MoMA in New York in 1961. As we read in an article published in Fatti e Notizie, the training centre is in an area of 6,800 square metres on Viale Fulvio Testi and consists of three buildings: one with the classrooms for theoretical lessons, the physics laboratory, the canteen, a library, and offices; a second one with the workshop for practical lessons; and a third for services. The Institute, to which also Pirelli magazine devoted an article, started up its activities in October 1958 with 50 students. About two thirds were selected from the children of employees, while a third were external candidates, and the aim was to “train workers to be ready to deal with the increasing mechanisation of industry and to provide those entering the workforce with modern, technically advanced professional training.” The theoretical lessons included mathematics, mechanics, physics, rubber and plastics technologies, electrical engineering, and economics. In 1969, the President of the Republic awarded the Institute the Gold Medal for Merit in Education and Culture. That year it became part of the educational system of Lombardy Region, offering professional training courses for the staff of other companies in Lombardy that did not have their own training facilities. These companies included Autobianchi, Marelli, Philips, and Same. In the 1970s, initial job-training courses for new recruits were flanked by intense refresher, qualification and specialisation activities for all employees in the Group, both in Italy and abroad. The aim was to keep pace with rapidly changing technologies, processes and organisation. Training was then extended to mid-level executives and managers, when the company began to make use of the first management models from the English-speaking world. In the 1990s, the high level of training know-how that had been achieved made it possible to increase the percentage of external students on the courses. Training activities continue to be of great importance for the Pirelli Group and they are now provided both digitally and in new premises in the Bicocca headquarters in an area entirely devoted to services for employees: the Cinturato Building. Designed by Onsitestudio who, for some architectural elements that recall the tread of Pirelli tyres, took inspiration from the advertising materials now in the Historical Archive, the building has been constructed to high standards of sustainability, using innovative materials, and it is home to training, welfare and company catering facilities.

A book, recently published in Italy, reflects on the complex relationships between enterprise, stakeholders and growth opportunities
 

Caught between trying to make a profit (and stay financially sound) and stakeholders’ demands, companies are now constantly striving to find their own productive and organisational assets that will allow them to grow, develop, and deal with competitors and external changes. Not an easy feat, and a daily challenge to both organisations and the manufacturing culture itself, with its vision of entrepreneurial tasks and goals in tow.

Sarah Kaplan’s book, recently translated into Italian as L’ impresa a 360 gradi. Dai compromessi con gli stakeholder alla trasformazione organizzativa (The 360° Corporation: From Stakeholder Trade-offs to Transformation), revolves around this tangle of issues. It looks at the reality experienced by companies that are expected to meet a growing and pressing number of requests from different stakeholders. Said stakeholders include consumers who demand products that are both socially responsible yet financially sustainable for their pockets, employees entreating for jobs that will make them feel worthwhile, investors who need to assess environmental, social and governance criteria, and, additionally, so-called “clicktivists”, who can cause a storm on social media as soon as a company makes a wrong move.

Those who manage and organise enterprises – this is one of the key ideas in the book – have learned from all this that companies need to act according to social and financial criteria, although pressure from different stakeholders means that a compromise must be found somewhere, in order to generate financial outcomes that will keep shareholders happy.

The question that Kaplan is trying to answer is a very clear one: how can companies meet all these demands while remaining faithful to their environmental or equal opportunities policies? It’s a complex answer, outlined over about 240 very readable pages and revolving around the limitations of a model based on shared value that, according to the author, only gives the illusion of benefitting everyone. Instead of this shared value approach, Kaplan offers a way to explore the different paths that companies could take to tackle real conflicts, and how these could become an inspiration for innovation and, at times, even increase their wealth, by demonstrating how a shared value mindset can actually hinder progress and how conflict – if well managed – could be the source of “organisational resilience and transformation.”

As it happens with any book that is clearly written and presents well-defined concepts, readers are not expected to agree with all it suggests – yet another good feature of Kaplan’s work, which sparks questions and debate or, in other words, generates conflicts that might be positive for enterprises and the manufacturing culture.

L’impresa a 360 gradi. Dai compromessi con gli stakeholder alla trasformazione organizzativa (The 360° Corporation: From Stakeholder Trade-offs to Transformation)

Sarah Kaplan

Egea, 2020

The fourth report on this theme, curated by Michele Tiraboschi, confirms how complex – and how vital – this topic is

A better understanding about welfare in Italy in order to employ it more effectively, for workers and enterprises, requires above all transparency and accurate content.

These are the features of the research studies included in WELFARE for PEOPLE, the fourth report on occupational and corporate welfare in Italy, curated by Michele Tiraboschi: a sort of guide to a fascinating and important topic that is often taken too lightly. This is why the curators, from the very start, highlight their “ambition to provide a useful contribution to the orderly development of corporate/occupational welfare.” In fact, one of the issues to be tackled is precisely the “disorderly” attitude generated by the enthusiasm on a topic and activities that, on closer inspection, are not really new, though they have just found new prospects for expansion and application.

The research studies comprised in the collection coordinated by Tiraboschi have thus been dictated by the “effort to develop a line of reasoning sufficiently detailed yet also supple in structure and simple in terms of communication.”

Underlying it all is a welfare “map” of Italy, which starts with an analysis of what, we are told, is happening “in the wide universe of (national, territorial and corporate) collective bargaining according to a methodological perspective concerning industrial relationships that allows to systematise a multitude of welfare fragments, which, when considered singularly, only offer a partial and even distorted view of this phenomenon.” This undertaking was made possible thanks to the Italian “fareContrattazione” database, created by the ADAPT research centre and including all main relevant collective bargaining contracts, illustrating the industrial relationship systems featuring the most comparative representative nature, as well as over 2,800 corporate and territorial contracts.

Figures and analyses aside, there are at least three sections worth considering for a better understanding of welfare in Italy, derived from investigations conducted by the Tiraboschi research group. First of all, the one about the ongoing “great transformation” that sees welfare as part of industrial relations; then the one on the relationships between welfare and the pandemic; and finally the links between welfare and territory (and this new edition includes some representative cases). All paying great attention to what we have already hinted at: the need to reliably measure what is happening.

This work by Michele Tiraboschi and “his” researchers has the great merit to provide an updated map of what is happening, as well as being comprehensible to all – an essential quality for institutions and enterprises wishing to do better, with a better understanding.

WELFARE for PEOPLE. Quarto rapporto su IL WELFARE OCCUPAZIONALE E AZIENDALE IN ITALIA. Il welfare occupazionale e aziendale in Italia (WELFARE for PEOPLE. Fourth report on OCCUPATIONAL AND CORPORATE WELFARE IN ITALY. Occupational and corporate welfare in Italy.)

Michele Tiraboschi (curated by)

Adapt/Intesa Sanpaolo, 2021

Versailles, a sumptuous palace, the testament of a world – that of French royal absolutism – swept away by the new ideas of the Enlightenment and by the Revolution of 1789. Yet, also the symbol of a great historical failure, after the arduous negotiations that took place at the end of World War I, with the winners (France and Great Britain) blinded by greed, America indifferent to a fair world balance, a weak Italy, and Germany crushed by a great defeat, condemned to pay for the excessive war damage it caused and punished by equally excessive sanctions that only led to crisis, resentment and later a frenzied desire for revenge culminating in nazism (the young yet already authoritative John Maynard Keynes was well aware of this, so much so that he controversially left the British delegation and illustrated his reasons in the clear-headed and even prophetical The economic consequences of the Peace, a book that, years later, was thankfully held in high esteem by the authors of the Marshall Plan, which financed the reconstruction and recovery of the defeated countries and as such became crucial in leaving behind the disasters wreaked by World War II).

Back to the present time: to the last few days, when the heads of state and government that compose the European Council gathered amongst Versailles’s fine stuccos, gilded mirrors and precious tapestries to take some joint decisions concerning the serious issues caused by the war in Ukraine: extended sanctions against Russia, renewed support to Ukraine and its inhabitants displaced by the invasion, a commitment to drastically decrease the energy dependency on Russian gas and oil.

Commitments agreed only in principle, as accompanied by inadequate operational decisions that will, anyhow, take time, assert the most critical observers. A significant and positive step forward for a more cohesive and active EU as it builds its own autonomy and security, stated on the other hand Prime Minister Mario Draghi, a sensible actor in all main developments where Europe acts as the assertive architect of new global scenarios. Also positive, all in all, the judgement by Giampiero Massolo, highly experienced Italian diplomat: “The Versailles Declaration has confirmed a significant trend: the States’ increased focus in establishing an overall and prevailing European, rather than national, interest, showing, in essence, a willingness to work together to mitigate the Union’s overall vulnerability, which will then also benefit each country singularly” (la Repubblica, 14 March). A decision that will have positive consequences, no doubt.

In the meantime the war, with its losses and its wounds, tragically continues and every day we have to face what Hegel rightly called “the burden of history”. Yet, at the same time, some long-term thinking about the future needs to be done, too – to acknowledge our weaknesses, the “strengths but also the limitations of open societies” (Angelo Panebianco well reminded us of such limitations on the Corriere della Sera, 13 March), and be aware of the economic and social costs of a Europe that wants to grow, acquire more international weight and as such feel more secure in the new scenarios that are arising in this multipolar, intensely conflicted world, in this new “cold war” loaded with the threat of “hot-headed” developments.

Here’s the key point: we need to take effective decisions in order to relaunch and strengthen the EU as a major player in the international rebalancing of powers and work to promote its strategic autonomy. In other words, we need to build a European security policy founded on three major principles: foreign policy and defence (a much more incisive one than the current CFSP agreements), energy and the supply of strategic raw (“rare earth”) materials, and scientific and technological research – with all political and economic implications that might ensue.

“Only a politically cohesive EU will be able to successively tackle global challenges”, said Paolo Gentiloni, EU Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs (Il Sole24Ore, 26 February). And, even more clearly: “History is steering the EU towards a turning point: after a period of solidarity, united against Covid, now it’s the time to become autonomous, especially in terms of energy and defence” (La Stampa, 7 March).

Its strategic placing is plain to see: a Europe that’s both Atlantic and Mediterranean, close to the US (also owing to shared liberal democracy ideals and market economy values, which must be safeguarded, promoted and relaunched through a veritable “battle of ideas”) but also open to a dialogue with China and Russia, and showing sensitivity to cultures and interests from other parts of the world, from Africa to South America. A multipolar world, indeed. A world capable to take joint decisions or, at the very least, feel pretty much the same about themes such as the environment, life quality, freedom, the future. A world full of exchanges, trade, relationships.

Of course, global economic trends won’t disappear and many tensions will intensify. Yet, we’ll have to make an effort and continue to define a new global order, trying to make better sense of, and give some more power to, the WTO, as well as the UN. A network of strong and well-balanced trade relations can only create a positive environment for the mitigation of neo-imperialist, nationalist and sovereignist issues.

The EU’s strategic autonomy entails not only a joint energy policy, but also better choices related to industrial policies (which will have an impact on defence needs) and fiscal policies (a joint budget for investments in technology, weaponry, scientific research, cyber security and artificial intelligence), and as such swifter governance, with respect to making political and economic decisions in a crisis, also able to overcome the notion of unanimity requirement.

Let’s take a better look at the industry. The number of companies that are radically altering their value production chains, supply chains and supply networks is increasing (as mentioned in our blog post from 23 November). Our manufacturing industry is coming home: a clear change in direction when we think of choices that were popular only a few years ago (when production was relocated to countries that offered lower costs and better conditions, from the Far East to certain areas of Eastern Europe).

Backshoring – or reshoring – continues, factories are no longer located abroad and therefore supply chains are getting shorter. What we experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic has confirmed that long and extensive supply chains (molecules essential to the pharmaceutical industry being produced in India, for example) are extremely fragile and precarious. A lack of raw material, jams in the transport system and strains due to tensions of any kind, including wars and adventurism, can cut them off – as we’re learning from the Russian invasion of Ukraine – or they can be disrupted by crises provoked by cybercrime. Better, then, to try and keep manufacturing in a safe environment, and therefore bring production and supply chains back home, to more auspicious places where they can be adequately managed and kept in check.

Backshoring tactics that, of course, should not be adopted separately by each single European country, but should be employed to turn the whole of the EU into a common production hub and make it more competitive at an international level. The EU’s decision to invest intensively in the production of microchips is a positive sign, and other sectors should follow suit.

Of course, manufacturing will continue in the Far East, but with European companies paying heed to more local-for-local approaches and a production system suited to the internal markets of the areas in which investments are made, rather than old-fashioned strategies relying on large import and export volumes. This is not at all meant to sound protectionist – it’s merely a shift in competitive attitude, to give companies the chance to strengthen their production skills and their quality in the world’s markets, and in more autonomous and safe conditions.

Basically, European institutions and industry need to collaborate, in order to define a downright road map for this transition. This, too, is strategic autonomy, and therefore freedom and security.

(photo China Photos/Getty Images)

It all started in 1973. That was the year of the first World Rally Championship, when Pirelli rode to victory and took the title on a Fiat 124 Abarth driven by the German Achim Warmbold. This was the first in a whole string of successes, with the hundredth celebrated on 3 March 1997.  Before the official championship was launched, rallying had been going for several years, with Pirelli starring in some memorable feats, such as the victory of Sandro Munari and Mario Mannucci‘s Lancia Fulvia HF 1600 in the 41st Monte Carlo Rally on 28 January 1972. Starting in 1973, the first 14 seasons of the World Championship saw an official partnership with the Fiat group: five world titles with cars manufactured by the Turin-based brand between 1974 and 1978 and then with Lancia in 1983 and 1987, coming out on top in Canada, Sweden, Greece, New Zealand, and Argentina, on all types of terrain.  Then came the partnership with Toyota, and the first triumphs in Africa in 1984 – with the debut of the future champion Juha Kankkunen – and then the victories of the Spaniard Carlos Sainz who won two titles, in 1990 and 1992. Another era in which Pirelli featured large in the World Rally Championship began in 1994, when the Long P fitted the Subaru Impreza Gr.A of the 555 World Rally Team, driven by Sainz and Colin McRae. Victory no. 100 came in 1997, again with the 555 World Rally Team.

A series of successes that is far from over and that continues to this day, with Pirelli as the exclusive tyre supplier to the World Rally Championship.

The Bicocca degli Arcimboldi, a Renaissance country villa in the countryside north of Milan, built in the late fifteenth century by the Arcimboldi family, is opening its doors using digital technology. A new virtual tour is available on the Pirelli Foundation website, allowing everyone to explore the rooms of the villa – which is now the official reception centre of the Pirelli Group – and find out about its centuries-long history and see the various decorations that adorn it, both inside and out.

You will be able to have a close-up look at the terracotta friezes on its richly decorated façade and the sgraffito work in the rooms. You can then go up the large staircase commissioned from Piero Portaluppi and visit the first-floor reception room with its elegant sandstone fireplace. You can enter the private apartments of the ladies, and admire the finely frescoed scenes on the walls, and imagine the daily life of noblewomen at the time. You will see the intertwined knot decorations inspired by the genius Leonardo or go all the way up to the loggia on the top floor to take in the panoramic view.

With a remarkable array of historical documents and images in the Pirelli Historical Archive, made available here, you will be able to retrace the most important changes that have taken place in the building and in the Bicocca area over the centuries: from historical photographs showing the derelict villa in the late nineteenth century to documentation on the arrival of the first factories in this area in the early twentieth, the purchase of the villa by Pirelli and the first restoration works carried out on the building. Then there are pictures showing how the villa was turned into a historical museum of the company and later a kindergarten for the children of employees, through to the “Bicocca Project” and the restoration work of recent decades.

This authentic gem of fifteenth-century art and important testimony to the history of Pirelli has now opened its doors to all.

The CEO of the Bank of Italy discusses ongoing changes and the “energy trilemma”

Plans and prospects need to be revisited quickly, following the same approach that steers the way in which individuals or groups act. This is what we are encouraged to do, lately, and is what everyone basically already does (or should do) – without, of course, compromising one’s own principles (including corporate ones), but undoubtedly revisiting, enhancing, developing them. This is why reading “Transizione climatica, finanza e regole prudenziali” (“Climate transition, finance and prudential rules”), the contribution made by Luigi Federico Signorini (CEO of the Bank of Italy and president of IVASS) at the 17^th AIFIRM (Italian association of financial industry risk managers) Convention, held on 3 March, proves very useful.

Signorini takes into consideration a particular aspect of our everyday life – the energy aspect, that is, the climate transition – although his observations kind of apply to all spheres involving our current social actions.

“This meeting is taking place over a difficult period”, the speaker tells us, “The appalling events of this past week oblige us to reconsider certain essential junctures within our individual and collective behaviour. Such as our energy strategies – not a top priority perhaps, but still a significant one – with current events highlighting their political and safety, as well as environmental, implications.”

Signorini goes on to analyse the theme assigned to him, pondering over the so-called “energy trilemma”, and then continues to discuss the “role played by finance and by financial brokers within the energy transition”, along with the “management of related risks”. Next, in his role as president of IVASS, he scrutinises the issue of climate (and catastrophe) risks and their related insurance possibilities, followed by an in-depth exploration concerning the sphere of finance and how it might, in some way, be affected by both climate and energy changes (swayed in their turn by shifting international politics and power relationships), and finally, as CEO of the Bank of Italy, he concludes by making a point related to banks, insurance companies and data reliability.

Signorini makes us understand how the need to ensure a positive and prudent management of production and energy usage is, nowadays, a question of technology, politics and culture.

His analysis indubitably makes for a useful read, and has the merit of interlinking topics that are interwoven in real life, too, though not everyone clearly realises the implications this might have.

Transizione climatica, finanza e regole prudenziali (“Climate transition, finance and prudential rules”)

Contribution by Luigi Federico Signorini, CEO of the Bank of Italy and president of IVASS, 17^th AIFIRM Convention Il trend inarrestabile dell’economia digitale e ESG: il pensiero dei banchieri, dei CRO e della Vigilanza (The unstoppable trend of the digital economy and ESG: the thinking of bankers, CRO and Supervision)

3 March 2022

The latest book by W.D. Nordhaus (winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize), now translated into Italian, describes a new plausible path towards safeguarding the environment and the economy

Smart and thoughtful change – this is what we need to tackle global warming, pandemics, overpopulation, climate disasters, and international political crises. To achieve all this, we also require a comprehensive and “revolutionary” approach, which could lead us to rethink economic efficiency, sustainability, politics, profit, finance and companies’ corporate responsibility. A complex knot of issues that William D. Nordhaus – winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2018 and Sterling Professor of Economics at the School of the Environment at Yale University – attempts to untangle in his The Spirit of Green, recently published as Spirito Green in Italy.

The book describes a compelling and promising path we could follow in order to manage looming threats without sacrificing economic wealth or increasing disparities.

Nordhaus, drawing upon his experience as an economist, offers a concise analysis on the theme, starting from its fundamentals and commenting on what has been happening; he goes on to discuss “sustainability in a perilous world”, and then explores possible suitable policies to embark on a different path than our current one (as well as outlining a kind of Green New Deal). The author subsequently situates this potential new approach within the concrete framework of individual social structures: profit, fiscal matters, corporate externality and social and ethical aspects, finance and social corporate responsibility – all of which become as many steps on the path suggested by Nordhaus, who concludes the book by emphasising the need for “climate agreements for the protection of the planet.”

Nordhaus’s work paints a hopeful picture: together, we can safeguard the environment and make our economy thrive once more. A work to be read attentively and, indeed, with a positive spirit (despite everything).

Spirito Green (original title: The spirit of green)

William D. Nordhaus

Il Mulino, 2022

Employment and young people in Italy. A world full of disparities and increasingly disintegrating expectations, and, as such, a serious threat to the development opportunities of the entire country. Moreover, a threat that not only concerns the economy but, more in general, the entire social system and, of course, the quality itself of Italian democracy. There’s a strong link between political involvement, a sense of social civic responsibility and employment (as indicated in the first article of the Italian Constitution) and this issue has remained unchallenged far too long.

To better understand it, let’s consider two factors: a figure of three millions and a percentage of 40%.

There are three million young people (3,047,000 to be precise) who are neither studying, working or training – they’re referred to as NEET, an acronym that means exactly that: “Not in education, employment or training. As a percentage, it amounts to 25% of young people aged 15 to 34 years, the highest average in the EU, even worse than Greece, Bulgaria, Spain and Romania. A “lost generation”, to quote a worrisome phrase by Prime Minister Mario Draghi.

Whereas 40% is the percentage of the jobs that companies would like to fill, but for which they can’t find staff that’s appropriately skilled or could promptly get a suitable qualification.

In summary, one young person out of four is out of school and employment at a time when companies are getting nervous about losing opportunities for general economic growth. In summary, these young people are left at home, disheartened, while companies don’t know who to employ. A troubling paradox.

Which young people comprise the NEET group? According to the ISTAT, OECD and Eurostat data included in the “NEET Working” report – a plan for the development and professional guidance for inactive young people, implemented by the Ministry of Youth Affairs in collaboration with the Ministry of Labour – 1.7 million out of over three million young people are women (amounting to a third of the European NEET rate – an astonishingly dismal record). Many quit studying after obtaining their secondary school diploma. Most live in Southern Italy: in Sicily, where the NEET rate amounts to 30% for young people aged 15 to 24 years; in the Calabria region, where it amounts to 28.4%; and in the Campania region, where it amounts to 27.3%.

Going into more detail, about one out of those three million is unemployed (but looking for a job), while the inactive category (unemployed but not looking for a job) comprises the remaining two million. A dramatic landscape now exacerbated by the crisis brought on by the pandemic, by the recession, and by the impact of rising energy and raw material prices, as well as the deceleration of the growth rate due to the war in Ukraine.

Thus, over the medium term, can a country like Italy, trying to establish a so-called “knowledge economy”, resign itself to disregard what amounts to a quarter of the next generation – and an even higher percentage, in terms of women – along the way, through ignorance and inaction (or precarious work, illegal and undeclared)? No, of course not. Not only because the perpetuation of such blatant disparities deeply unbalances the social system (causing frustration, resentment, and a sense of alienation with respect to the interests and values of the whole country, as reports by CENSIS, the Italian socio-economic research centre, have been showing for years), but also because enterprises – the drivers of development – are lacking indispensable human resources.

This is indeed confirmed by the percentage of unfulfilled roles we mentioned above: 40%. There is a lack of sophisticated skills concerning professions related to technological innovation and digital economy (engineers, mathematicians, computer scientists, statisticians, physicists, chemists, data analysts and cyber security experts, neuroscientists and technicians from the complex sphere of life sciences), but also a scarceness of intermediate technicians in the mechanic, mechatronic and chemical industries, as well as in the whole construction sector.

How to address this? The choices made until now proved to be unsuccessful, from the introduction of a “citizenship income” (welfare allowance dependant on income and citizenship) as a first step towards becoming employed to early retirement for elderly people, under the delusion that the new generation would fill their shoes; from training programmes (managed by regional authorities and extremely inadequate with respect to concrete employment needs) to European initiatives called Youth Guarantee actuated into “GOL” (Guaranteed employability) projects.

It’s time to change direction and channel resources from the PNRR (the Italian recovery and resilience plan) following the indications of the EU’s Next Generation Recovery Plan, reiterating the importance of quality training, the ratio between education and work, the enhancement of standard and higher technical colleges.

Leaving aside more specific measures, however, what’s needed is a more general political and cultural commitment, so as to teach our dispirited and discouraged young women and men the value of education and knowledge, through feasible and useful training programmes – a veritable civic battle involving cultural, entertainment and sports figures, influencers and testimonials the younger generations can rely to.

Italy is a country experiencing an alarming, growing demographic crisis, it’s getting older and it’s decaying (“in 50 years, in Italy, we’ll have 12 million less people”, predicted ISTAT in November 2021) – more reason to act and stop neglecting a quarter of today’s young people, leaving them stranded without study or employment skills. This social crisis needs a more effective and faster response, as well as a strong government taking responsibility for it. Italian President Mattarella has, in several occasions, spelled this out very clearly. It’s now the turn of the government, of Parliament, and of political forces to make some concrete decisions and implement appropriate measures, and inspire a sense of social willpower and passion for a better future.

photo: Getty Images