Dear Draghi, what if someone says they prefer air conditioning?

Dear Draghi

The sanctions of the European Union and the United States affect the Russian Federation in dozens of areas, from trade to technology, but also those who impose them. And not all alike. If it is true, as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, that "the war will last a long time, perhaps years", it is necessary to gear up accordingly. Perhaps Italy, so dramatically looking for a strategy to free itself from dependence on Russian gas and deprived of an important 7 billion euro export market, does not really need a war economy. But at the very least, if the intention is to get serious and eventually stop gas as well, as the European Parliament has just asked with an overwhelming majority vote, we need an economy of sanctions. Putin wants to rebuild the post-1991 world order by erasing the last thirty years with rockets. We have to show him that not only will we not allow him to do so but that we are not bluffing about the isolation of his country.

In this sense and returning to the things of our house, even before anything significant comes out - for now we are still in the order of crumbs, with about 5 billion euros, perhaps less, obtained from the calculations of the Document of economics and finance just approved thanks to the GDP boom in 2021, which is not sure how and where to put - the Prime Minister Mario Draghi gave us a small example of how things should not go the other day.

Sanctions on Russia are not only just but morally dutiful and, together with the supply of weapons to the Ukrainian army and assistance to the population inside and outside the attacked country, it is essentially the only thing to do if not we want to go to war against Moscow, net of the usual "diplomatic efforts" which will not go anywhere until the situation on the ground stabilizes. Yet putting it on the carpet in that simplistic way doesn't help anyone: “Do we prefer peace or the air conditioner on? This is the question we must ask ourselves ".

What are the economic sanctions of the West against Russia From the stop to the authorization of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to the measures against banks and oligarchs, what are the Union measures European, United States and United Kingdom. No sanctions have been passed directly against Putin. The problem is that if someone, or perhaps more than someone, should at some point answer this question that Ukraine doesn't give a damn about and actually prefers the air conditioner on, how would we put it? What kind of consequences would the government draw? And what if this clear-cut way of cutting the question led to new seasons of populism - which, on the other hand, we can already hear the first cries - according to which Mariupol is a massacre but that of Italian SMEs is even worse? It is only a matter of time before these kinds of assumptions, perfectly compatible with this way of putting things by the Prime Minister, begin to emerge. Directly proportional to the duration of the conflict, to trade and energy blocks, to the increase in the prices of raw materials and to international tensions.

That exit of the former European central banker has therefore confused us because, as always happens with the oversimplification from which every now and then (even with Covid-19) slips also due to his dry rhetoric in other very appreciable occasions, it unloads on citizens a situation on which the government should give concrete answers. Point.

If it is in fact true that, in this as in many other occasions (the fight against climate change comes to mind), individual attitudes and more generally the comfort we are used to make the difference, it is equally true that more supplies from other international suppliers are needed, new regasifiers and the upgrading of infrastructures already available, an acceleration on renewables, obviously a new European strategic plan that passes not only from common storage but also from financial support and many other individual and common moves that energy experts have identified.

Among other things, on the European front it would be better to start working seriously, because the sanctions - as we said - do not affect everyone in the same way as Covid did and snatch a new "Recovery Fund" in key energy will not be easy, just think of the diametrically opposed positions of France and Germany. At the same time, but on this something we have seen and on fuels the first real cut in excise duties in recent history is due precisely to Draghi, it is necessary to intervene without gifts and waste but in a serious way on the income of families, and therefore on bills and consumption , on trade, and therefore on inflation, and on SMEs, therefore on energy supplies. Again: it's only a matter of time before someone gives Draghi's trick question the wrong answer. Carlo) who tear apart the very expensive Chanel handbags on social media against the closure of shops and the withdrawal from the Russian market appears despicable and dystopian while Ukrainian babies die under Russian bombs and millions of people flee their homes. While it is true that support for Putin's "special military operation" is more rooted than we can imagine, that still remains a propaganda offensive. However, we must be very careful: that virus could also wedge itself on the western front for now incredibly compact, especially if governments do not show themselves ready to build a fair sanctions economy and able to contain the damage before many are no longer willing. , or no longer able to support them.