Foreign Press, Italy's Success Stories

National Interest Project

Foreign Press, Italy’s success stories

Second summary report

Analysis for the period February - June 2008

National Interest Project Foreign Press, Italy’s success stories

A favorable review by the international mass media contributes to increased foreign investment for a country and makes it easier for its citizens to forge business, financial and intellectual ties. It is for these reasons that Aspen Institute Italia, as part of its National Interest Project, has undertaken to monitor perceptions of Italy and Italians in the foreign print media with a view to highlighting their strengths.

Work carried out by “Foreign Press, Italian success stories” On a daily basis since April 1, 2007, the Aspen Institute Italia’s “Foreign Press, Italian success stories” section has monitored US, British, German, French, Spanish, Middle-Eastern, South African and Brazilian newspapers and English-language papers published in Russia, China, Japan and India (a list of the publications reviewed can be found at the end of this summary report).

Over the course of fourteen months, over 4500 articles have been considered, proof of Italy’s ample exposure in the foreign press. The items examined were then divided into three topic areas: - “Italian Business”, which refers to views on Italian companies and Italy’s economic policies; - “Italian Culture/Italian Life”, which relates to cultural, natural heritage and hence tourism aspects of the country; and - “People from Italy”, a section dedicated to stories featuring our fellow Italian citizens. From the outset it was decided not to take into account views in the foreign press that are strictly political in nature.

963 articles have so far been added to the publicly accessible section of the Aspen Institute Italia website (in both Italian and English), selected on the basis of their relevance to the abovementioned topic areas and with further articles being added each week. The Institute has also decided to offer its members a three to four monthly analysis of the issues reported by the foreign press, with this current report constituting the first update (the first such summary report was issued at the beginning of March 2008).

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The key role played by Italian public companies “If they were to be judged on merit alone, the recent performances by the heads of Italy’s top trio of state-controlled industrial champions should have already comfortably secured their jobs and the renewal of their three-year mandates …ENI[, for instance,] has strengthened the oil group’s position through a series of deals in Venezuela (The Wall Street Journal of March 1, 2008), Libya (the International Herald Tribune of April 10, 2008), Algeria and Angola, not to mention delicate negotiations in Kazakhstan and a significant alliance with Russia’s Gazprom (The Wall Street Journal of June 25, 2008) … ENEL has … turned [from a] national electricity utility into an international heavyweight through … transformational deals in Spain[, France] and Russia (La Tribune of March 14, 2008 and The Wall Street Journal of May 15, 2008) … [and] Finmeccanica has transformed [itself] into a focused aerospace and defence group (The Washington Post of May 12, 2008)”. These expressions of admiration, published in the Financial Times of last March 13, highlight more than any other form of recognition could have done that some of the key players in the global economy over the last four months have been large Italian publicly-owned companies. ENI has managed to regain a foothold in Caracas (after Hugo Chavez’s decisive nationalization of the oil industry) and to take over the Belgian Distrigaz (Les Echos of May 27, 2008), ENEL made significant returns on its sale of the Spanish Endesa’s assets (ABC of March 29, 2008) and Finmeccanica is on the verge of pulling off the coup of the season, namely, the acquisition of the American DRS - one of the most important US defense suppliers. And it doesn’t end there. The foreign press also picked up on commitments to overhaul two state-controlled structures that were once synonymous with delays and inefficiency: the Italian State Railways and the Italian Postal Service. The news regarding the former organization was welcomed by the main French business daily, Les Echos, which on April 25, 2008 hailed “the significant improvement in the accounts of Italy’s State Railways in 2007” and noted that “the company has managed to contain its deficit to 409 million euro (almost a fifth of the losses it registered only a year ago) and its turnover has increased by 14.7%”. Praise for Italy’s Postal Service, on the other hand, came from across the English Channel, with The Times of February 29, 2008 observing that: “[Royal Mail’s] counterpart in Italy is … adopting a strategy that Royal Mail bosses might wish to consider. [It] not only delivers mail but is also a bank offering financial services … insurance [and] even mobile phones … The key … is diversification”.

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Italian industry: it’s not just about SMEs In highlighting the significant achievements of northeastern of Italy, Le Figaro declared on April 16, 2008 that “the secret ingredients of successful Italy” are by now well known: “work, innovation, flexibility and adaptation to user demand”. According to the foreign press, these elements have made the Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige and Friuli-Venezia Giulia one of the most prosperous macro-regions in the European Union, representing a fundamental resource in an economic system made up of “an archipelago of small and medium-sized enterprises” (the Financial Times May 12, 2008), with sectors that have become world leaders (such as the packaging industry, as noted in the same paper on May 8, 2008). Nevertheless, the traditional and longstanding description of Italy as home to a myriad of SMEs, while undoubtedly true, does not give a comprehensive picture of the nation’s industrial scenario.

Italy’s bulwark: the banking and insurance sector A similar approach threatens to obscure the robustness shown by Italian banks, which are less exposed to the international crisis than their foreign competitors (the Financial Times of May 15, 2008) and are now poised to make new acquisitions, particularly in Eastern Europe (the Financial Times of February 27, 2008). Just as in 2007, when the press focused on Unicredit and Intesa- Sanpaolo movements, over the last four months two other financial institutions seem to have attracted the attention of foreign newspapers, namely, the recently recapitalized Monte dei Paschi di Siena (Les Echos of March 6 and the Financial Times of May 21, 2008), and the newly-established Che Banca!, a retail credit division of Mediobanca. The news from Mediobanca’s headquarters in Milan resonated particularly in France, where the institution has a higher profile. And while La Tribune had already run the story by March 10, 2008, it was its rival Les Echos that on May 14, 2008 that got to the heart of the matter: “Like some fashion house creating a line of clothing for young people”, wrote its correspondent, “the venerable and mighty Milanese investment bank has decided to adopt a youthful image by creating an online retail credit division”. Over the last four months, the Italian finance sector also made headlines in the foreign press for two news items related to the insurance industry. The first item concerned Assicurazioni Generali, Italy’s insurance giant, which has refuted criticisms of its management by certain UK investment funds by issuing financial statements for 2007 posting net profits of over 2.9 billion euro (Handelsblatt of March 18, 2008) and demonstrating efficient management even in its foreign divisions (La Tribune of April 9, 2008). The second news story related to Fondiaria-Sai which, after

------4 For personal use only. This document is to be used exclusively for Aspen Institute Italia institutional purposes. taking control of the most important Serbian insurance company, announced that it was ready to invest over a billion euro in similar operations in Romania, Greece and Turkey (La Tribune of April 1, 2008).

Companies in the manufacturing and retail sectors Italian industry has not gone unnoticed either. The foreign press, taken up as it has been over the last year in charting the resurgence of certain traditional Italian brands, welcomed the announcements by Fiat of its intention to open a manufacturing plant in North America (El Mundo of May 29, 2008) and to create an economical line of vehicles with either its Indian partner Tata (La Tribune of February 29, 2008) or its recent acquisition Zastava (Les Echos of May 2, 2008). The press has made much of the news that the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s have upgraded the Turin-based company from a BB+ to a BBB- rating in acknowledgement of its renewed stability. Other Italian companies received less detailed media coverage but nevertheless found ways of drawing attention to themselves. One such example is the catering and retail group Autogrill, which has set its sights on a turnover target of 6 billion euro for 2008 (Les Echos of March 19, 2008) and which has already become a world leader in airport catering (Les Echos of March 11, 2008). Other Italian companies that have received foreign press exposure include the world’s foremost eyewear manufacturer Luxottica (Les Echos of February 23, 2008), its competitor Safilo (Handelsblatt of March 31, 2008), the revamped Parmalat (Le Figaro of May 16, 2008), the Riello group, which aims to build titanium structures for aircraft (the Financial Times of March 26, 2008) and the mobile telephone value-added services provider Buongiorno, which recently closed a lucrative deal with the Finnish group Nokia (the Financial Times of June 2, 2008). Similarly, the print media has focused on the strategies of companies that have looked to the East as a source of opportunities for increasing turnover. These have included the coffee producer Illy, which has launched a chain of high-end coffee bars in India in partnership with the local Narang group (The Hindu of March 29, 2008), the fashion house Ferragamo, which has opted to move its headquarters from Florence to Shanghai (The Guardian of March 29, 2008), and lastly, fashion label Prada and yacht-builders Azimut-Benetti, who are staking their bets on Japan (The Wall Street Journal of April 25, 2008) and China (the Financial Times of May 21, 2008) respectively. Lucrative international deals have also been struck by the Benetton group (with Singapore public investment funds buying a stake in the group’s parent company: the Financial Times of March 12, 2008) and international sports company Inter Milan, which has opened a football academy in Abu Dhabi (the Gulf News of May 2, 2008).

------5 For personal use only. This document is to be used exclusively for Aspen Institute Italia institutional purposes. Raising the profile of the “Made in Italy” label The companies mentioned above together with others have contributed to maintaining the popularity abroad of the “Made in Italy” brand and concept. In this regard, two news stories stood out in terms of their importance for the protection of the uniqueness of Italian products. They related to two international victories in the area of food and concerned, firstly, a European Court of Justice’s ruling which upholds the uniquely Italian nature of the “Parmigiano” label (the International Herald Tribune of February 27, 2008) and, secondly, the decision by a Chinese court which found a company guilty of producing imitation Ferrero sweets (the Financial Times of April 8, 2008). These were important victories, given also that the foreign press has shown little interest in recent months in Italian agro-food products. The profile of Italian brands, which on the whole benefits from internationally-celebrated events such as the Salone del Mobile (mentioned with less emphasis than last year in the foreign press: the Financial Times of April 19, Les Echos of April 23 and Le Monde of April 25, 2008), could receive a further boost from Expo 2015, which is to be hosted by Milan. This is assuming, however, that the event manages to grab the attention of the foreign press, which has not been the case so far. The news of Milan’s triumph over Turkish İzmir in the bid to host the Expo was only reported in two newspapers of international stature (La Tribune of April 1 and The Washington Post of June 24, 2008).

New perspectives on Italy Nevertheless, interest in Italy continues unabated, underpinned particularly by the charm of country’s natural beauty and culture. Despite the predominance of articles on Rome (see ABC of March 5 and 10, the China Daily of March 8, The New York Times of April 5, and Le Figaro of April 24 and June 21, 2008), the last four months has seen an unprecedented diversification in the foreign press in terms of Italy-related stories. Correspondents have described areas of the country that are less known to global readers, including Apulia (Die Zeit of May 21, 2008) and its trulli houses (The Wall Street Journal of February 29, 2008), South Tyrol (The Guardian of March 8, 2008), Ischia (Suddeutsche Zeitung of March 6, 2008), Trieste (El Pais of May 31, 2008), Lake Garda (The Times of June 11, 2008) and the Paduan Castle of Catajo (The New York Times of March 13, 2008), to mention just a few.

The same can be said with respect to culture. In relation to opera, alongside articles dedicated to greats such as Donizetti (The Times of March 7, 2008), Puccini (Die Zeit of May 29, 2008) and Rossini (the Financial Times of June 7, 2008), attention has been drawn to the innovative nature of

------6 For personal use only. This document is to be used exclusively for Aspen Institute Italia institutional purposes. the program for La Scala’s upcoming season (the Financial Times of March 10 and Le Figaro of May 30, 2008), with bold inclusions such as Luigi Dallapiccola’s Il prigioniero (the International Herald Tribune of April 24 and the Financial Times of May 28, 2008). The same goes for coverage of the figurative arts. Much print space has been given over to exhibitions by important albeit not universally well-known artists, such as Sebastiano Del Piombo (the Financial Times of February 26, the International Herald Tribune of March 15 and El Pais of March 20, 2008), Pietro Batoni (the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of April 24 and Die Welt of May 3, 2008), Bartolomeo Bandinelli (Le Monde of March 20, 2008) and the Divisionist painters (The Independent of February 27, 2008). This is in addition to further signs of renewed interest in contemporary Italian art (the International Herald Tribune of March 18, 2008), as highlighted in the previous foreign press review. The sense is that foreign reporters are attempting to reveal the hidden aspects of a country that is much too complex to be limited to stories on Michelangelo’s frescos or images of Tuscan hills.

Seeing the world with new eyes A similar approach has led to coverage regarding several of the more interesting local film productions, sparked by the international success of Daniele Lucchetti’s “My brother is an only child”, which also gained a US release (The New York Times of March 28 and the Los Angeles Times of April 6, 2008), and the success garnered by films such as “Non pensarci” by Gianni Zanasi (Le Monde, Le Figaro and Les Echos of April 30, 2008) and “The Unknown Woman” by Giuseppe Tornatore (the Suddeutsche Zeitung of May 23, 2008). This interest meant that when two strong Italian films - Matteo Garrone’s “Gomorrah” and Paolo Sorrentino’s “Il Divo” - arrived in cinemas after triumphing at the Cannes Festival (El Pais of May 12 and Le Figaro of April 16 and 27, 2008), the foreign press supported them, seeing signs in these two feature-length films of a new wave of great Italian cinema (The Times of June 14 and The New York Times of June 20, 2008). Foreign columnists have warmed to the efforts of a segment of Italy which has shown itself to be willing to question itself and to face up to rather than hide the country’s problems. This is the Italy of the likes of Roberto Saviano (El Pais of May 19, 2008), the Southern Italian businessmen who are taking a stand against protection racketeers (Die Welt of June 26, 2008), Palermo hoteliers and restaurateurs who have asked tourists to support establishments that are refusing to pay protection money to mafia gangs (The Guardian of May 17, 2008) and citizens of Bari who took to the streets in an anti-mafia rally calling for change (The Washington Post of March 15, 2008). Mention has also been made of companies and cooperatives that have been established using assets confiscated from mafia members (Le Monde of April 9 and the Financial Times of May 31, 2008).

------7 For personal use only. This document is to be used exclusively for Aspen Institute Italia institutional purposes. But the heroes of the anti-mafia movement have not been the only Italian faces presented to the world.

The many faces of Italy The leader of Confindustria Emma Marcegaglia (The Times and the Financial Times of February 28, The Economist of March 13, the Suddeutsche Zeitung of April 14 and The Wall Street Journal of April 28, 2008), the Minister of Economy Giulio Tremonti (the Financial Times of June 23 and The Wall Street Journal of June 19, 2008), the Chairman of IFIL John Elkann (The Economist of May 8, Le Figaro of May 12, Les Echos of May 13 and Liberation of June 30, 2008), the head of Vodafone Italia Vittorio Colao (the Financial Times of May 6 and The Wall Street Journal May 28, 2008) and France’s First Lady Carla Bruni (The Guardian of March 28, Le Figaro of June 11 and the International Herald Tribune of June 23) are the five Italians who aroused the most interest among foreign newspapers over the last four months. These five freshly-appointed (or married, in the case of Carla Bruni) Italians have been viewed by the foreign press as the most important new national personalities, although they are not the only Italians the papers have been talking about. The press has concentrated on thinkers entrepreneurs, artists and sporting figures, showing little interest in Italy’s political leaders with the exception of the Minister for Foreign Affairs Franco Frattini (Der Spiegel of March 10, 2008), the PD’s Shadow Minister for Welfare Enrico Letta (Liberation of June 30, 2008), the President of the Region of Sardinia Renato Soru (the Suddeutsche Zeitung of June 5, 2008) and the Mayor of Milan Letizia Moratti (the Financial Times of March 6 and May 1, 2008). Some new faces from the business world have also been featured, with stories on Lorenza Battigello of the Ales Groupe (in Les Echos of March 11, 2008), Sergio Marchionne of Fiat (in the Financial Times of March 28, 2008), Cesare Romiti of the Fondazione Italia-Cina (in the China Daily of April 17, 2008), Frida Giannini of Gucci (in the Gulf News of May 19, 2008), Corrado Passera of Intesa- Sanpaolo (in America Oggi of May 28, 2008), Carlo Petrini of Slow Food (in The Times of June 10, 2008) and Paolo Zegna (in the Suddeutsche Zeitung of June 18, 2008), to mention just a few of the more significant articles. The same can be said of intellectual figures, with stories appearing on Gianni Vattimo (in El Pais of February 25, 2008), Nobel Prize-winning actor Dario Fo (in El Pais of March 9, 2008), the writers Claudio Magris (in ABC of March 3, 2008), Gianrico Carofiglio (in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of February 26, 2008), Alessandro Baricco (in El Pais of April 4 and ABC of April 24, 2008), Sandro Veronesi (in Le Figaro of April 10 and Le Monde of April 25, 2008), journalist

------8 For personal use only. This document is to be used exclusively for Aspen Institute Italia institutional purposes. Mario Calabresi (in Die Zeit of March 27, 2008) and semiologist Umberto Eco (in ABC of May 4, 2008). New names are emerging in the music world, where alongside mainstays such as Claudio Abbado (ABC of April 20 and El Pais of April 27, 2008) and Riccardo Muti (Le Figaro of April 10 and The New York Times of May 6, 2008), others have been featured including soprano Cecilia Bartoli (in Les Echos of March 21 and Die Welt of May 27, 2008), jazz musicians Enrico Rava and Stefano Bollani (in The New York Times of February 23, 2008), singer-songwriter Carmen Consoli (in The New York Times of March 8, 2008) and the band Afterhours (in America Oggi of June 18, 2008), all fresh from touring the US. One field that is undergoing a complete generational turnover (as described in the previous foreign press review) is the fashion world. New names that have been featured in the press these last few months include Alessandra Facchinetti, designer for Valentino (the International Herald Tribune of February 26, 2008), Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi, famous for their 6267 label and now designers for Gianfranco Ferré (The New York Times of March 20, 2008), Riccardo Tisci, Creative Director for Givenchy (Le Figaro of June 28, 2008) and Edoardo Mantelli, founder of the Tocca label (The Times of March 8, 2008). To these names must also be added the CEO of Yoox Federico Marchetti, creator of the label’s online clothing showroom (the Financial Times of June 4, 2008).

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Great Britain: Germany:

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France: Spain:

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United States: Russia:

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Print edition China:

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India: United Arab Emirates:

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Japan: Brazil:

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Switzerland: South Africa:

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Periodicals monitored

Great Britain: Germany:

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France: United States:

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New newspapers (monitored since July

2008)

China: Israel:

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Mexico: Saudi Arabia:

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Argentina: Algeria:

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Australia: Morocco:

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