As Italians struggle with the new currency, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's lack of enthusiasm for the euro - and Europe - becomes ever clearer, writes Paddy Agnew in Rome
Perhaps, it all began with a kick under the chair. The foot belonged to Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and sitting on the chair at which his kick was aimed was his then foreign minister, Renato Ruggiero.
The scene was a NATO summit in Brussels last June where the newly elected Italian government was making its first significant international outing, represented by both the prime minister and foreign minister. Berlusconi, allegedly frustrated by the extent to which he was being upstaged by his savvy and more experienced foreign minister, opted to literally call him to heel.
That Brussels summit marked the beginning of tensions which eventually culminated in Ruggiero's resignation last weekend, a resignation that prompted a Europe-wide clamour about Italy's new-found euro-scepticism. After all, Ruggiero "resigned" - a letter of dismissal had already been written in case he failed to go quietly - in the wake of a bitter cabinet row about the Italian government's lukewarm response to the euro's introduction.
In particular, Ruggiero had taken exception to the hostile attitude of three cabinet colleagues. While the rest of euroland was out on the streets celebrating a potentially epoch-making event, Italian ministers were sounding gloom and doom. Defence minister Antonio Martino said that "the euro experience could end in failure", economy minister Giulio Tremonti belittled "primates waving banners" and, least elegantly of all, the devolution minister and Northern League leader, Umberto Bossi, said that he "couldn't give a damn about the euro".
At this point, Ruggiero chose to make a last stand. Via the media, he attacked his euro-sceptic colleagues in what looked like a plea for the prime minister to intervene. The prime minister did indeed intervene, reprimanding not the euro-sceptic ministers but rather Ruggiero when he pointed out that he and he alone was responsible for Italian foreign policy, while adding that Ruggiero was "merely a technocrat".
When Ruggiero complained publicly yet again, Berlusconi had had enough and promptly sacked his foreign minister, thus in one fell swoop ridding himself of a troublesome minister while declaring a new Italian anti-European line. For even if Berlusconi has since been at pains to confirm his government's commitment to both the euro and the process of European integration, such words sound hollow and unconvincing at the end of a six-month period in which the Ruggiero resignation was the latest indicator of a dramatic shift in emphasis in Italy's EU policy.
On a broader front, the Ruggiero resignation, allied to scenes of bank and post-office chaos, has seen Italy earn itself the unwelcome label of "the last in the class", the country that spoiled the euro party. In a sense, such a label is profoundly unfair as Italy, an EU founding member, has a long, honourable tradition of supporting closer integration.
Indeed, on the issue of the euro, the populist Berlusconi would, for once, appear to be out of synch with his electorate. Although he is someone with a keen eye for a good "photo- op", he was noticeable for his absence from any form of public celebration of the new currency at a time when heads of government up and down euroland were outdoing themselves in pro-euro public relations gestures.
While Berlusconi remained ensconced in his luxury villa in Sardinia, Italians all over the country went wild in an enthusiastic search for euros. Huge queues formed at autostrada pay tolls on January 1st and 2nd as Italians, rather than paying by credit or autostrada card at the automatic booths, opted for the booth with a teller so that they could get their hands on the new money, given that change was only in euros.
At this point, certain chronic infrastructural shortcomings manifested themselves. For a start, it turned out that many banks had not made the necessary changes to their cash machines. By January 3rd, Tommaso Padoa Shioppa, Italy's ECB board member, had to admit that only 70 per cent of Italian ATMs had made the currency transfer, compared with a euro zone average of 80 per cent.
Those of us who have lived a long time in Italy and have learned to know and love the Italian banking system might argue that 70 per cent by January 3rd was not such a bad performance. It could have been much worse and anyway, by the middle of this week, 100 per cent of Italian ATMs had been converted.
Furthermore, a typically last-minute directive from the finance ministry left travel agencies all over the country without the correct computer software for issuing train tickets. This prompted huge and sometimes unruly queues at stations, the only place where tickets could be bought.
The initial problems of sluggish euro distribution, aggravated by a bank workers' strike last Monday, also led to a run on post offices as frustrated customers took their business there, again giving rise to lengthy queues.
The initial shortage of euro also inevitably forced many Italians to continue doing their business in lira. By the middle of this week, however, ABI, the Italian Banks Association, claimed that 65 per cent of all financial transactions in Italy were being effected in euro.
Consumer wariness, too, can make euro transactions a slow business. Instinctive distrust has been maximised by the euro, as some customers become convinced (usually wrongly) that they have been shortchanged.
One newspaper vendor at Le Rughe, north of Rome, told The Irish Times this week that the euro had given him huge problems, not of a mathematical or accounting nature but rather of a psychological bent. His account of initial euro trading is typical of many. "When I was giving people change for their papers in lira, they would often not bother to wait for 100 lira (€0.05) but now they are anxiously checking to be sure that they have got every cent in their change, and then arguing with me if they think I have got it wrong," he said.
Consumers, of course, are keeping a vigilant eye out not only for the correct change but also on prices. Inevitably, various consumer assocations have already protested against price hikes incurred by retailers rounding off upwards rather than downwards. In this latter regard, however, Italy is not alone, since consumers all over euroland have been complaining about similar price rises.
While most of Italy's initial difficulties with the euro are essentially teething problems likely to be resolved long before the country makes the definitive switchover on February 28th, the implications of the last week for Italy's EU policy are likely to cast a much longer shadow.
Already, on a number of important issues - the Kyoto Accord, the US's plans for a Missile Defence Shield, the European Airbus military plane project and the EU fast-track arrest warrant - the Berlusconi government has taken a line independent of (and irritating to) its European partners. Indeed, differences over many of the above issues were the backdrop to Ruggierio's resignation last weekend.
The deposed foreign minister, a former head of the World Trade Organisation and a highly experienced diplomat, makes no secret of his belief that the Berlusconi government perceives the EU as, at best, a necessary evil. Furthermore, he believes that while the centre-right government coalition contains the xenophobic anti-European Northern League, Italy's influence in the EU will be badly reduced.
While opinion poll after opinion poll confirms that a majority of Italians have more faith in EU institutions than in Italian ones, Berlusconi's government appears headed in the opposite direction. One opposition politician told The Irish Times this week that Berlusconi's diffidence about the EU is related to the prime minister's DNA.
As a hugely successful businessman, now the wealthiest man in Italy, Berlusconi had a well-charted ability to navigate successfully in the grey waters between legality and illegality. As we write, he faces charges of corruption and false accounting in three different ongoing trials, merely the latest in a series over the last decade, none of which has concluded with a meaningful conviction.
"He is a man who likes to operate outside or without reference to the rules, but the problem about Europe is that the whole EU experience is about arriving at accepted Europe-wide rules and regulations," said a political opponent.
After the events of the last week, Europe will be monitoring Berlusconi closely. Such scrutiny, however, is unlikely to influence the single-minded Italian prime minister who, in the meantime, has himself assumed the post of foreign minister, ad interim. At least that way, he does not have to kick any more chairs.