Tag: Italy
A good lesson in diplomacy
Ten days with family in Rome have emboldened me to tell the tale of the Embassy’s Giambologna Venus:
She is the single most valuable piece in the State Department’s worldwide art collection. The story of her travels dates to my time as Deputy Chief of Mission and Charge’ d’affaires ad interim 1990-93. She is now back at Embassy Rome, where I visited her week before last, courtesy of Ambassador Jack Markell.
All cooperation
Paul Richard told her backstory in the Washington Post 30 years ago. The Venus dates from 1583 and ended up in the State Department collection shortly after World War II. That was when the US government bought–I was told with post-war currency it printed itself–Palazzo Margherita, the imposing 19th century building on the via Veneto that still serves as the US embassy. The Venus was among the few art objects the hard-up dowager queen of the assassinated King Umberto I had not sold. Many of the rest are today in the Museums of the Villa Borghese and Palazzo Altemps.
The Venus stood for decades in a niche in the Ambassador’s grand staircase leading from the main, piano nobile (second floor in US numbering) to the courtyard. But sometime in late 1992 or early 1993 the State Department Under Secretary of State for Management called to say I should cooperate with the National Gallery of Art, which wanted to borrow the Venus for display in Washington. They would pay for her cleaning and restoration. The National Gallery had also arranged to display her at the Pitti Palace in Florence before she took up a couple of months residence on Constitution Avenue.
This all sounded fine to me. When National Gallery Director Caaarter Brown called, I was all cooperation.
Things fall apart
In the succeeding months, the cleaning and restoration went well. I enjoyed visiting the restorers, who worked in a cordoned off corner of the embassy courtyard. But other things started to come apart.
For reasons never explained to me, the Pitti Palace canceled its display of the Venus. This concerned me. I knew there would be a public controversy if she went to Washington without public display in Italy, where she had not been seen for more than 350 years. So I took advantage of my wife’s connection to the Director of the Capitoline Museums. She quickly arranged to display the Venus in the Sala degli Orazi e Curiazi. Its frescoes date, like the Venus, to the late 16th century.
While she was there, I awoke to news that terrorists had exploded a bomb in a parking lot outside this very Sala. I imagined the Venus in pieces, along with my diplomatic career. But she and I were both intact. The bomb had only broken a few windows.
Still more trouble
Then things got dicier. A rumor reached me–again through my art historian/museum curator wife–that the National Gallery was not planning to return the Venus to Embassy Rome. It belonged, the curators there thought, to the American people, which meant the National Gallery. Why should she hide in the niche above the Ambassador’s staircase?
This presented a classic diplomatic quandary. I had instructions to do something–cooperate with the National Gallery. But that could lead to a result I didn’t want–the loss of the most valuable piece in the State Department’s collection. How was I to do as instructed without sacrificing my employer’s interests? I could have passed the issue back to the State Department. But what if State decided to give away the Venus? My Ambassador wasn’t going to like that.
The National Gallery’s interests were also at risk, whether they knew it or not. The Italians had refused for many years to loan art to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met would not return an ancient Greek “krater” stolen from a Sicilian archeological dig. I could barely get an Italian to accept a lunch invitation to meet the President of the Met during those years.
Trust but verify
For the Venus, the Italians were the answer. I rang up the Director General for Cultural Affairs at the Foreign Ministry to discuss her export to the US. He assured me there would be no problem. The committee charged with considering such exports would approve this one quickly without question. “We trust you” he said.
I had to tell him twice that he might trust me, but I still needed a formal bilateral agreement pledging the return of the Venus to Rome. He got the message the second time around. So we exchanged Notes Verbales committing the US Government to return the Giambologna Venus to Italy.
Codas
Off she went to the National Gallery, where about 185,000 people saw her. They held a big, flashy opening but forgot to invite anyone from Embassy Rome. Having just transferred to DC, I rang up Rusty Powell, who had replaced Caaarter Brown as Director. I suggested he could repair this faux pas by giving me and my wife a personal tour of the Venus on display. He graciously did that, accompanying us to see her before opening hours.
Then a few years later I met a National Gallery curator at a friend’s house. She had been involved in the Venus loan and confirmed that the National Gallery had not intended to return it to Embassy Rome. I was pleased to recount how I had prevented that maneuver.
It really is a good lesson in diplomacy: anticipate trouble, try to prevent it, and get lucky.
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Stevenson’s army, July 30
– Politico wonders whether Russia was behind the collapse of the Italian government
– NYT says Blinken resists Hill calls for Russia to be designated a terrorist supporting state.
[I agree. It causes more diplomatic problems than it adds to Russian punishment. But, of course, it sounds beautifully tough.]
– Here’s CRS background on the law.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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At risk
President Trump, concerned about the stock market’s more than 20% falloff, is still minimizing the risk and pushing for aid to the travel industry (including his own hotels of course) as well as a payroll tax cut, which he hopes will bury the memory of his massive tax cut for the wealthy in 2017. Neither move will do much for the non-payroll poor, who either vote for or against him because he is a racist. There is no buying them off his poor opponents or his poor proponents. He knows it.
I suppose his economic moves might cheer the markets temporarily, but there is no way we don’t get a big slowdown and likely a contraction this quarter and into the next. The failure of the US government to act promptly against Covid-19, has condemned us all to self-quarantine. While the economy is digitalizing, face-to-face interaction is still indispenable to industries that handle physical stuff and important to others, like teaching international relations. Presidents Xi and Trump may want to purvey happy talk, but reality bites.
It’s biting me too. I’m scheduled to travel to San Antonio Sunday and Atlanta during the following week to visit with our grandchildren, whom I haven’t seen since Thanksgiving. I’m not really worried about protecting myself from the virus. Lots of sanitizer and surgical masks will do a decent job of that, with some residual risk. But if we happen to cross paths with an infected person and are advised to self-quarantine, we could end up stranded for a couple of weeks in one of the destinations or the other. As attractive as that might be for seeing the grandchildren, it won’t help me get my work done. Nor will housing a grandparent for an unexpectedly long period, sick or not, be easy on the kids. So we need to choose between taking the risk or canceling the trip. Ugh.
Many millions of people are now making similar decisions. The Italian government has made it for them: stay home except for work and emergencies it says. I won’t be surprised if we end up there, but the President is still thinking more about his re-election prospects than about the welfare of the American people. Fortunately, they get the final say. How anyone watching the bozotic performance of this Administration in responding to Covid-19 would want it back in office come November is beyond me. It would be fitting if the germophone fell to a virus. Trump is at risk.
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Missing in action
2020 marks the ninth year after Gadhafi’s ouster. On February 24, the Brookings Institution hosted a panel discussion on “Solving the Civil War in Libya.” The discussion featured two speakers: Federica Saini Fasanotti, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Karim Mezran, director of the North Africa Initiative and a resident senior fellow with the Rafik Hariri Center at the Atlantic Council. Michael E. O’Hanlon, senior fellow and director of research in Foreign Policy at Brookings, moderated.
Today’s Libya
Fasanotti described the situation in Libya as bad. Khalifa Haftar and his Tripoli headquartered forces are attacking Tripoli, headquarters of the internationally legitimized Government of National Accord (GNA). Egypt and Russia are supporting Haftar with arms. Even in colonial times, Egypt posed a threat to Italy’s control over Libya due to insurgents’ mobility along the border. Fighters still pass easily over the border, which has allowed Egypt to help Haftar conquer the eastern part of Libya.
Mezran added that the mujahideen fighters believe Muslims are obliged to keep infidels out of the area. But religious narratives are misleading. Haftar is neither an Islamist militia nor a secularist, but rather a creation of foreign powers. The issues are political and difficult to resolve.
Remedies?
Fasanotti attributed the difficulty to solving the Libyan civil war to four factors.
- Media coverage on different narratives is disruptive.
- A variety of militias in Tripoli makes it hard to start a conversation with Haftar.
- Haftar is accused of murder and torture in Benghazi.
- The Berlin Conference and peace talks failed.
Both Haftar and the GNA have become stronger because of their external backers. Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey all have different economic and political interests in Libya. This spoils the chance to bring peace.
Mezran believes that peace plans don’t work because situations keep changing on the ground. Bombardments against civilians induce continued struggles and attempts at negotiation. Mezran suggests neighboring states, such as Egypt and Algeria, can do much more than the Berlin Conference.
Fasanotti is disappointed that the US is missing in action in Libya. She called for President Trump to expand bilateral relations and encourage the Secretary of Defense to resolve conflicts with Libya. Mezran argues that Libya is not important in comparison with other US geopolitical interests in the region, which make it unlikely the US will restrain the states that support Haftar.
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Too big to fail or bail
On June 4 the American Enterprise Institute hosted a panel discussion titled “Europe’s Populist and Brexit Economic Challenge” moderated by Alex J. Pollock of the R Street Institute and featuring Lorenzi Forni (Prometeia Associazione), Vitor Gaspar (International Monetary Fund), Desmond Lachman (AEI) and Athanasios Orphanides (MIT). The panel discussion was centered around Italy’s rising populism and economic woes, with a short discussion about the possibility of a no-deal Brexit causing damage to the European economy.
Gaspar showed that only 24% Europeans polled believe in the political system at both the national level and at the European level, while 38% of people said neither works. Voter turnout in both national and European parliament elections is going down, while the share of votes going to populist parties has increased. The mainstream parties are losing votes. In 2019 there was almost a 50/50 split between votes for populist parties and those for establishment parties. With parliament more fragmented than ever, coalitions of at least 4 parties are needed to get a majority, which makes governing difficult. The 2014 and 2019 voter maps of Germany show virtually no change, while Italy’s map shifted solidly populist. “Support for populism in Western Europe is strongly correlated with exposure to the shocks of globalization,”Gaspar said. Europe needs risk-sharing mechanisms.
Orphanides sees Europe stuck between two competing narratives. The technocratic elite believes the EU has been an economic success in the past decade or two. Others think the prescriptions by the technocratic elite have not served the European population as a whole and have instead acted for the benefit of one or two member states. In the latter view, the mainstream parties of the past have to be kicked out of government and replaced by new parties that will serve the people better.
Orphanides believes there is some truth in both narratives, but people presenting them fail to talk directly with each other, causing tension. “Europe is not a club of equals” he said, citing mismanagement of the euro crisis as the root of many present crises such as Brexit. Elites in Brussels and Frankfurt drive the agenda and have to acknowledge what has gone wrong. “Instead,” Orphanides said, “they are still in the denial phase.”
Moving on to Italy, Orphanides declared “the fact that the euro has been a disaster should be acknowledged.” Italy is a rich country and has been running a primary surplus for twenty years, so there is no reason for the Italian economy to be doing as poorly as it is. Lachman agreed a primary surplus is necessary but said the current 1% surplus is nowhere near sufficient and has to be closer to 3-4% to have a noticeable impact.
Forni disagreed, saying Italy joined the European Union because its public finances, inflation, and debt were out of control in the 1980s. You should not take averages when looking at Italy’s economy over the past twenty years. The 2008 financial crisis and the euro crisis in 2011 were damaging. Since 2013, things have gotten better and Italy has strengthened its position.
In Forni‘s view, Italian economic performance was poor because the productive structure of Italy in 1998, built on small, family-owned businesses with limited IT capabilities, was not ready for globalization. Add an aging population and brain drain, and it is easy to see why Italy suffered economically. Italy’s current debt is sustainable given no further crises the likes of 2008 or 2011, but Lachman cautioned that the Italian debt issue has to be addressed because Italy is ten times the size of Greece and bailing it out in a crisis would be a massive undertaking. “We might find ourselves in a situation in which Italy is too big to fail, but too big to bail” Lachman said.
Forni then mentioned three things Italy needs to thrive in Europe: A debt target of 90% of GDP (Italy’s debt to GDP ratio was 132.20% in 2018), a plan of structural reforms to address issues of tax evasion and corruption, and an increase in risk-sharing at the European level. Safe assets, the European Deposit Insurance Scheme (EDIS), and an increase in labor mobility could help reduce and share risks.
Lachman noted he was pessimistic about Europe’s future for 4 reasons:
- Disappointing economic and political developments;
- Fundamental flaws in the euro which he doesn’t believe can be fixed;
- Major challenges in Italy and Brexit;
- The limited room for policy maneuver in Europe.
Lachman also addressed the north-south economic divide in Europe, showing that Italy’s per capita income is lower now than it was twenty years ago while Germany’s has risen. Unemployment in the southern parts of Europe remains much higher than in the north. These differences cause political resentment between the north and the south which, combined with the weakened center in EU politics and the fragmentation of parliament, make reform difficult. “The euro is fundamentally flawed,” Lachman said. “A country with low productivity like Italy cannot survive in an economic policy straitjacket with a high productivity country like Germany.” A key issue is the lack of a European fiscal union. Germany requiring a balanced budget limits its expenditures in economic downturns, while Italy’s weak banking system and unsustainable finances hold it back.
Lachman also mentioned Germany and the US trade war. “Germany has a highly export dependent economy” and cannot afford the resulting economic slowdown and falling exports. Adding a 25% tariff on German automobiles exported to the United States would be catastrophic.
On Brexit, Orphanides said a hard Brexit would be bad for the UK and the EU, but he accuses the EU of only negotiating deals that punish the UK for leaving instead of negotiating a win-win deal. To him the only light at the end of the tunnel is the possibility of stopping the clock on Brexit to keep negotiating or a second referendum. Lachman pointed out that both candidates to take over for Theresa May have talked about the UK leaving the EU on October 31 with or without a deal.
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