Italians might be bewildered by Monti's greyness, but they're also strangely proud to have a statesman in charge at last
For almost nine months now, Italians have been trying to figure out what makes their new prime minister, Mario Monti, tick. With his predecessor, Silvio Berlusconi, it was easy. Berlusconi liked a good time, he was the carnal clown who loved parties and crowds. Now the excesses of the carnival have given way to the meagre diet of Lent and the country is struggling to understand the new man in charge. This is someone so far removed from the demagoguery of the last 20 years that he keeps even the name of his pet dog private.
Monti was (like Mario Draghi, the Italian president of the European Central Bank) educated by Jesuits. He is, according to his biographer, Claudio Bernieri, "a cast-iron Catholic", a man considered so religiously and economically orthodox that his office at Milan's prestigious Bocconi university was nicknamed "the tabernacle". He seems to live by Ignatius of Loyola's dictum suaviter in modo, fortiter in re: gentle in manner, strong in deed. Although courteous and suave, he's also an inflexible man of principle, dedicated to balanced budgets and the dismantling of cartels, be they unions, corporations or criminals. This is the man who, as European competition commissioner, was responsible for Microsoft being fined a record €497m, earning him the predictable nickname Supermario.
That unexpected toughness comes from the certainty that he feels as an economics professor of international renown. There's even a sartorial rigidity about him. At a conference in Idaho, when world leaders took off jackets and ties, Monti could only bring himself to remove the latter. Journalists talk of his alterigia, his haughtiness, and he has an understated humour that reveals a rock-hard self-confidence. When Berlusconi boasted that he could "unplug" Monti whenever he wanted, Monti quietly said "I'm not an electrical appliance". For decades politicians have sucked up to Bruno Vespa, host of a long-running political chatshow. In reply to one of Vespa's disdainful questions, Monti simply said, "If you'll allow me, I'm not here to please you." His chilling replies to frothing Northern League politicians – shutting them up with lethal quips – have become legendary.
That's perhaps why Monti seems so un-Italian to his countrymen. They say that his humour – calm but cutting – makes him appear very English. His father was born in Argentina. He always wears a loden cape, the uniform the Milan elite borrow from Austria. He studied for years at Yale (under economist James Tobin) and spent almost 10 years in Brussels. He's taken to heart that other Jesuit saying, totus mundus nostra habitatio fit: make the whole world your home. Dispassionate and cosmopolitan, Monti appears a world away from the excitable provincialism of his predecessor.
That, perhaps, is the greatest effect he has had: to throw into sharp relief the dismal calibre of the Italian political class. Unlike them, Monti appears completely unattached to the poltrona, the armchair of power. He has said that he intends to leave his post in 2013. He has renounced his prime ministerial salary. And a large part of his appeal is that he seems to share his compatriots' disdain for politicians: he likes to quote Alcide De Gasperi's dictum that "a politician looks to the next elections; a statesman to the next generation". Many Italians might be bewildered by Monti's grey, rigid presence, but they're strangely proud to have, at last, a statesman in charge.
That's why there's no queasiness, as there would be in Britain, about an unelected PM. And that's why there have been so few protests in Italy compared with Spain and Greece: Italians certainly don't like the medicine, but they trust the doctor far more than the other quacks in parliament. They trust his team, too. When one of his ministers openly wept introducing austerity measures, it revealed humanity and empathy. It might be over-optimistic, but one of the effects of Monti's rule might be not only an improvement in the economy but, just possibly, an improvement in political discourse.
Despite that, there have been criticisms and, as usual, conspiracy theories. The fact that Monti has been the chairman of the Bruegel thinktank, European chairman of the Trilateral Commission, a member of the Bilderberg Group, a founder member of the Spinelli Group and an adviser to Goldman Sachs and Coca-Cola and Fiat (to name just ), suggests to many Italians that he's a privileged elitist who mixes more with vested interests than the man on the street. His property portfolio, while paltry compared to Berlusconi's, is still enviable: he owns 10 flats, three shops, two warehouses and an office. He has denied rumours that he's a mason, but even the rumour reinforces the idea that Monti might be part of a cartel himself.
There have been the stirrings of a backlash. His supposed saintliness has been parodied in a collection of quips under the title Monti Made Chuck Norris Pay VAT. "When you pass Monti a Bible," goes one gag, "he signs it." Or else "Monti is so diplomatic that he sucks your blood using cutlery". There was a drinks advert recently in which monkeys were wondering where to buy a house, whether at the sea (al mare) or in the mountains (the monti). The monkey looks at the camera and sighs: "Let's go to the sea, to the monti no." It was a subtle sign that the country is still hoping that leisure and excitement will replace austerity and exertion. A popular accounting book has recently gone on sale with cartoonish Monti on the cover complete with voodoo needles stuck in him.
That backlash is also because Monti has, as promised, started taking on the cartels. Politicians in Italy have been talking for a generation about abolishing the costly provinces; about reforming article 18 of the workers' statute; and about abolishing the pensione di anzianità (a pension claimable before you reach pensionable age). Within weeks of coming to power, Monti had started work on all three. He has sent tax inspectors into exclusive resorts such as Cortina d'Ampezzo. He's opened up the market for TV frequencies, thereby breaking the Rai-Mediaset duopoly. And he is taking on the protectionist tendencies of pharmacists, taxi-drivers, notaries and so on, with their bizarre licensing scams and minimum tariffs.
What will happen next year when Monti is due to step down? It seems very unlikely that such a monkish figure would ever want to enter the bear-pit of Italian politics. He might eventually replace Giorgio Napolitano as president of the republic or else centrists might persuade him to join a reinvented Christian Democrat coalition. But with Berlusconi already, predictably, making noises that he's ready for a comeback, Monti will certainly want to make sure another carnival doesn't undo his Lent diet.