From the years as mayor of Florence to his journey to the premier's office and the regional elections, with one mission alone, to 're-make Italy", the latest edition of the New Yorker has a long portrait entitled "The demolition man," about Premier Matteo Renzi.
It spans the major steps of his career leading to his becoming head of government, focussing on the economic issues, the central theme of reforms, the European context and his principal adversaries, from radical 5-Star Movement leader Beppe Grillo to the anti-immigrant, anti-euro Northern League.
"Renzi and Merkel are a European Union odd couple. Like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia (both members of the U.S.
SUpreme Court, the first famed for her commitment to the rights of women, the second a conservative), they get along," says the author, Jane Kramer, underlining how the premier has "produced an ambitious packet of reforms, keeping the budget safe".
Then the New Yorker goes into detail on Italian politics, from the reforms to a Constitution that is "desperately if understandably democratic in its checks and balances," to the election of President Sergio Mattarella.
The magazine underlines how, in his strategy, Renzi has learned at least "one lesson" from his fellow citizen Niccolò Machiavelli: "a leader does not take prisoners where his ambition to govern wisely is at risk".
The article includes the chapter of the recent regional elections and the Democratic Party defeat in Liguria - a result that beyond the "apathy" of electors "contains a message: Renzi could have promised too many things, too quickly to the country for any politician to achieve".
Turning to Europe the New Yorker quotes Renzi as saying: "in the past the message has always been that the EU must tell Italy what to do. "The real message now is that we are Europe. The perspective has changed," the premier said in a conversation with the writer, to whom he confirmed: with elections in 2018 "in 2024 I will leave. I will study, be a professor".
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