Jamie Rubin:
His critics we saw in the film: politicians, people from the media, judiciary, etc. Berlusconi would claim that almost all of these people have a left-of-center orientation. And that their real complaint is that a right-of-center politician is in power and has used the levers of power to advance himself. Is there something to that? Are his loudest critics from the left of center? Are there any, for example, right-of-center, major politicians who've been as outraged by his concentration of power in his hands in Italy?
Alexander Stille:
Well, in Italy it's inevitable that most of his critics are going to be his political opponents. But, for example, Giovanni Sartori, whom you interviewed repeatedly in your documentary, is a quite conservative commentator on many political issues. But he feels very strongly on the conflict of interest issue and has been very tough on Berlusconi on that. THE ECONOMIST magazine is hardly a left-wing community newspaper as Berlusconi alleges. They backed Bush in the Iraq war and supported Thatcher and so forth. They simply feel that democratic competition shouldn't happen the way in which it's happening in Italy. And someone with as much baggage, both in terms of a past of corruption and in terms of his private interests, shouldn't be running a country. And I think it's very important.
Unfortunately, Berlusconi's been very successful in polarizing the discussion of himself and by using his critics of being "communist" and so forth. You know, I think it's important for people to understand that these are issues that cut across ideological lines. Anybody who cares about the functioning of democracy should be concerned about the blurring of lines between public and private interests. And the amount of power that any individual is able to hold as Berlusconi does. And I think it's precisely if you, in fact, are conservative, and believes in competition, you can see that this is very unhealthy. Both in terms of political competition and economic competition.
Jamie Rubin:
Let's talk about his concentration of power. It seems that he has certainly silenced one arm of the media -- the television. He's passed a law that prevents him from being prosecuted. He has control of the Parliament. What are the checks and balances left in the Italian system that prevent him from being a modern-day Mussolini?
Alexander Stille:
Well, really the only checks and balances left are elections. Realistically, he has a majority in Parliament. And as long as he is prime minister during this legislature and has this majority, he can pass laws that would seem to many of us to be unconstitutional. Unconstitutional maybe in American terms. But he can -- as long as he has that majority -- he can force them through Parliament. There have been moments in which the Italian courts have thrown out this or that law. But they've not been able to effect legislation significantly. On paper, at least, there exists the office of president in Italy. The president is a sort of "figurehead" person. But does, in fact, have to sign off on major laws and can object to laws that he considered to be unconstitutional. The current President is actually a person of great integrity and stature in Italy. But has chosen to play a very low-profile role in things. And has not really confronted Berlusconi on some of these issues. So I think, realistically, nothing will change until there are elections. And then Italian voters will, if Berlusconi is seen to have fallen way beneath expectations, may vote him out of office.
Jamie Rubin:
Let's talk about his popularity. He does appeal to voters as a self-made man. He appeals to voters by polarizing the issue between the left and the right. Why do you think he has lost this recent round of local elections despite all this media power? Are Italians buying the Berlusconi line?
Alexander Stille:
Berlusconi, for reasons that are not his fault, is governing in a period of world recession. There was both the bursting of the dot-com bubble combined with the effect of 9-11 which depressed business in lots of areas. And so he's had to cope with a declining economy along with the leaders of a lot of other countries. So that's a piece of bad luck which isn't of his doing. He certainly hasn't been successful in doing what he claimed he would do which is take a lot of energetic steps to get the Italian economy going. Create jobs, etc. And I think it's partly because the fact that he does have so much at stake in the Italian economy means that he's unlikely to pass a lot of reforms that might have that effect. For instance, many people agree that Italy needs pension reform. But a lot of his supporters are against having pension system changed in a way that would hurt them. So he decides to put off that issue. He's actually been extremely indecisive and inactive, and ineffective in a lot of economic areas. And only energetic in the areas that regard his own personal business.
Jamie Rubin:
Let's talk a little bit about TV versus print journalism. Do you regard the newspapers, as opposed to the television, as free in Italy? And haven't they been some of the primary critics of Berlusconi?
Alexander Stille:
Well, they have, but it's interesting. Berlusconi doesn't much worry about newspapers or magazines that are clearly on the left. He knows that their readers will never vote for him. And that his voters will never read those papers and will discount whatever appears in them as being partisan. Where Berlusconi has dedicated his attention, are in the print media that have a broad mainstream centrist readership.
Jamie Rubin:
Like we saw in the film.
Alexander Stille:
IL CORRIERE DELLA SERA is the prime example. LA STAMPA, the newspaper of Turin, is the other. They are big centrists. It's like the WASHINGTON POST and the NEW YORK TIMES here. And he has been able to exercise a lot of indirect control of those papers. Both papers are owned in part or almost entirely by the Fiat Auto company and the Agnelli family. The Fiat car company has been going through all sorts of economic troubles, as your documentary played it out. And a very important statistic that your film played it out was the fact that Fiat, while in the midst of a really dramatic crisis in which they're laying off tens of thousands of people, actually increased their advertising on Berlusconi's networks -- his private channels. But cut them on the public channels. That tells you very clearly that keeping the good graces of the prime minister is fundamental to this business enterprise.
Alexander Stille:
But can't you read in CORRIERE DELLA SERA today, tomorrow, next week, strong criticism of Berlusconi?
Alexander Stille:
From time to time. If you look at the life of IL CORRIERE, for example, I think it's very clear that the paper, since Berlusconi came into political life, moved significantly toward the right to adapt itself. And hired a lot of political columnists who were singing in tune with Berlusconi. They didn't fire some of the older columnists who continue to be critical of Berlusconi. And that's why, he then, put the pressure on the ownership to fire the former editor, DeBortili.
Jamie Rubin:
But are we gonna see criticism of Berlusconi in this major newspaper?
Alexander Stille:
You might see criticism from time to time, but you would never, for example, see an investigative report ...
Jamie Rubin:
About his corruption.
Alexander Stille:
Yes. The fact, for instance, that there has never been in either the CORRIERE or LA STAMPA or on any of the six main national networks, a serious examination of the charges of Berlusconi. Their attempts to say, Okay, so what's hearsay and what's been documented? What are the charges that hold up under close scrutiny? And what are charges that are unproven? You would think that that would happen in a naturally free press. And that has not happened in Italy. So that, as a result, the average sort of center voter doesn't quite know what to believe. He's hearing, day and night, the invective of Berlusconi and his people saying, These charges are all lies.
Jamie Rubin:
But they know about the charges. They just don't know about the specifics?
Alexander Stille:
They know about the charges but they've sort of "tuned out" the specifics and no one's taken the trouble to explain them to them. And I think, actually, if they examine them closely, they'd be quite shocked.
Jamie Rubin:
Let's talk about the specific charges of corruption and bribery that have been made against Berlusconi. Do you think the average Italian regards these charges as outrageous? Or do they somehow come to expect business leaders to bribe the tax man, for example, to avoid paying taxes?
Alexander Stille:
Well, I think it's true that one reason why there's been a high level of toleration for Berlusconi and his legal problems is that many Italians do skirt the law. In many cases feel they're forced to skirt the law by excessive regulation. There are something like 70,000 or 90,000 laws in Italy. And only 5,000 in France.
Jamie Rubin:
Tax laws?
Alexander Stille:
Just laws in general. Their life is very regulated. And one is often forced, if you want to, you know, add a bathroom to your house, getting a permit to do that is unbelievably complicated, so you don't do it and then you're forced to either pay an inspector to look the other way. Things like that happen all the time and that's made people sympathetic to someone who's maybe on a larger scale had to do that in his own business. But I think that what many Italians don't know because it hasn't been publicized is that the kind of bribery and the kind of corner cutting that Berlusconi and his company has done is on an entirely different scale. If you consider, for instance, that it's been documented that the so-called antitrust that allowed Berlusconi to own three national networks was drafted by a man whose party received an $8 million under-the-table payment. That was proven in court. It was thrown out because of the statute of limitation problems that occurred.
Jamie Rubin:
So he paid the official --
Alexander Stille:
The company --
Jamie Rubin:
-- $8 million.
Alexander Stille:
-- to his party. And the legislative aide of this official was given a so-called $300,000 consulting fee; he was hired by Berlusconi's company as a consultant. Prosecutors regarded this as a bribe.
Jamie Rubin:
And the result was?
Alexander Stille:
The result was a law that was tailor-made for Berlusconi which basically said, "Let's see. How many networks should a private individual be able to own? How about three?" And that happens to be the number that Berlusconi already owned. Many people were pressing for limits of one station, two stations. In Spain, for example, people are not allowed to own more than 25 percent of any single network.
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