Labor: Monti’s Revolution – Job market reform has pushed Italy and the government’s economic policy to the front pages of the foreign press. The world’s major papers carefully followed negotiations between the social partners (Wall Street Journal, March 17 – Italy’s Monti Presses on Labor Reform*; Gulf News, March 20 – Italian leader to press ahead with labour law revision, describing Mont’s proposals; New York Times, March 19 – Italy Tackles Labor Laws That Divide Young and Old, and the Government’s approval; The China Post, March 23 – Italy approves Monti’s deregulation reform). Some articles also analyzed the role in the negotiations of Mario Monti, who has been called on – according to The Economist – to “untangle” the knots (March 23 – Italy’s reforms: Monti’s labour-law tangle) and promote an employment “revolution”, according to the Portuguese paper Publico (March 21 – A revolução laboral de Mario Monti*).
The changes in Italy over the last several months (including the fact that Italy’s risk premium has fallen below that of Spain, as reported by ABC (March 19 – Italia «sorpassa» a España) are the subject of other articles. Two of these explain how European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has, like the Prime Minister, helped improve Italy’s image at home and abroad (Washington Post, March 20 – Italians take heart from a pair of Super Marios, projecting image of can-do Italy; The China Post, March 22 – Two Marios reshape Italy’s image at home and abroad
Italian Business World – the spotlight was also trained on Italian businesses. Fiat, used to the attention, was defined by Le Figaro as a “laboratory” for the future of the automotive industry (March 21 – Fiat-Chrysler, laboratoire de l’industrie automobile). The foreign press also discussed Menarini, which has signed an agreement to expand in Brazil (Valor Economico, March 21 – Menarini fecha acordo com Biolab para crescer no país*). There is also mention of the state of Italy’s luxury goods, which are – according to Le Monde – in excellent health thanks to sales in emerging markets (March 16 – Le luxe italien, porté par les pays émergents, affiche une santé éclatante).
Finally, there was interest in leading figures of the business world. The foreign press discussed not only new Confindustria President Giorgio Squinzi (Les Echos, March 23, Le nouveau patron des patrons italiens, représentatif du capitalisme transalpin), but also an Italian manager famous abroad as the executive vice-president of Dassault Systèmes, Monica Menghini (Les Echos, March 22 – Monica Menghini).
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