The danger of moving from cooperation to conflict

Emanuela Citterio

One of the lessons of history “is that the risk of going from cooperation to conflict is not at all remote, especially after long economic crises like the one we are going through now,” says the director of the forthcoming Festival of Economics in Italy.

“The crisis of the Eurozone has highlighted the vital importance of managing different sovereignties,” adds Tito Boeri.

‘Sovereignty in Conflict’ is the theme of this year’s conference, which takes place in Trento and Rovereto from 30 May to 2 June.

“The topic of the relationship between the individual national governments and Europe has broken into the political and economic life of our country several times,” says Boeri. “Some, as was the case with Mario Monti [the prime minister from 2011 to 2013], were damaged by the support of a number of European institutions, and there are politicians who said that their hands were tied when it came to economic-financial policies because somebody else decides for us.

“Obviously these positions are extreme but they help us understand how prickly this topic is.”

The issue, and the meeting, has attracted some high-level participants, including two Nobel Laureates in economics who will open and close the festival:

Trentino Dolomiti Fiera di Primiero Chiesa Santa Maria Assunta

Image by Luciana Bettega

Boeri says most of the speakers will be macroeconomists, but there will also be experts on law and institutions, as well as politicians from countries with direct experience of the crisis and the issue of sovereignty – such as George Papacostantinou, the former Greek finance minister.

This year’s conference will be even more international than the previous seven, with foreign speakers outnumbering Italians.

This year’s novelties also CinEconomia, three films that offer economic insight, and performances based on literary and economic texts at Trento’s Teatro Sociale theatre.

The festival will spill into the squares in Trento and Rovereto with a range of events, including creative workshops for children. The NGO Unimondo, OneWorld’s Italian counterpart, will closely follow the festival, as it does every year.

“The festival is an opportunity for a debate that Trentino offers the whole country,” says Alessandro Olivi, industry minister for Trento province. “This shows that for us autonomy means good practices to be exported and certainly not autarchy or isolation.”