RAPALLO – “Infected capitalism”. Two words were enough, pronounced by the former prime minister and leader of the 5 Star Movement Giuseppe Conte, to provoke a harsh reaction from the industrialists gathered in Rapallo, where the former Prime Minister spoke via video link, for the Youth conference. Conte, stimulated by the journalist David Parenzo, talks about the Genoa investigation and says that “It’s not for pillorying. The problem is that it’s a rotten system, you can’t govern the country like that.” Conte then talks about a “infected capitalism” and of the fact that “some entrepreneurs assign themselves tenders or share concessions on yachts to the detriment of other honest entrepreneurs”. And then he says: “I expect there to be a leap of responsibility towards a way of doing business based on personal relationships with the financing of the politicians in question“. Words that were not digested by the Rapallo audience.
Confindustria, young people criticize politics: “Disappointing and empty electoral campaign”. Attack on the EU: “It is destroying the automotive industry”
by our correspondent Diego Longhin
31 May 2024
The first to react is Emma Marcegaglia, past president of Confindustria and president of B7: “Hearing a political leader talk about infected capitalism, if you’ll excuse the term, makes me crazy. We are serious people, we need respect.” He also replies on the reference to a “war economy”: “The speech from the president of the Young Entrepreneurs was simply a nice speech which I agree with: they say that we must defend Ukraine which is under attack every day from Russia. It means being on the side of those who suffer, those who are ill, against those who use violence and go against all the rules.”
The event
Confindustria, the young people and Genoa in Orsini’s team
by Massimo Minella
31 May 2024
Conte tries, from Sicily, to immediately stifle the controversy, explaining better what he meant to say. “I know Emma Marcegaglia well and I think she misunderstood my speech. In talking about infected capitalism I was referring to that unhealthy system that also emerges from judicial investigations in which the entrepreneur seeks a privileged relationship with the politician of the moment and then finances his campaign electoral This represents an infected management of the relationship between politics and economics, the privilege granted to a single entrepreneur that puts everyone else in difficulty, and this is an unfair practice the other political forces that want to compete on equal terms. I believe that Marcegaglia can absolutely agree on this aspect as can the vast majority of entrepreneurs who are honest”.
Crosetto: “The EU is more committed to rules than growth. In the car we are content to act as representatives of the Chinese”
by our correspondent Diego Longhin
31 May 2024
The controversy, however, does not subside. Even the president of Confindustria, Emanuele Orsini, attacks the former prime minister. “I don’t like hearing those who lump everything together here today, I understand the electoral campaign, we are entrepreneurs, we represent the country, we are the ones who make up the country’s GDP.” And as well Riccardo Di Stefano, president of Young Entrepreneurs, closing the event in Rapallo, responded sharply to the former prime minister of the 5 Star Movement. “In 2019 he said that if Italy is still sitting at the G7 it is due to its companies and therefore infected capitalism should go and tell it to someone else, not here, not to us. On the contrary. Don’t say it at all. The vast majority of Italian companies are healthy and carry out their social rather than economic role with commitment”. And also on the “war economy” Di Stefano says that Conte “read the thesis wrong, it must have been the theses of others, not those of our documents. Also because he then says that we need more integration and cooperation in defense, which is exactly what we were saying. But no, we are Young Entrepreneurs, young but not born yesterday, so we understand when a politician doesn’t want to give answers he throws it into politics.”
