The purpose of the discussion topics proposed by the work groups is to deepen some of the main subjects relating processes currently affecting Mediterranean economies and societies. According to the approach adopted during the first International Meeting entitled “The Triple Mezzogiorno” and the methodology of identification of the Gordian knots and of the possible Alexandrian solutions, we have considered some nodal points deriving from the impact of the crisis on Mediterranean countries today, with the aim to monitor development processes and identify new growth patterns for these areas. These nodal points involve employment, mobility and social problems of younger generations who are not only the primary objective of youth-oriented policies but also the main authors and actors of their elaboration and implementation. Beyond the different conceptual positions, the discussion topics underline the need to find new reference models that do not push only in the direction of growth at any cost or sustainable growth, but that  – starting from the need analysis – can strengthen  the social structures, in order to increase the social responsibility of the enterprises, to stress the importance of social enterprises and  to increase cooperation, thus improving the quality of life and favouring employment for future generations.

The traditional economic view tends to reward work through the determination of a money salary, not paying too much attention to other components – not necessarily of monetary nature – that can replace salary or be an additional value, deriving from services provided by the Community. The logics adopted so far have determined that the real economy depends too much on money, often generating a perverse spiral among prices, salaries and fiscal withdrawal. Is it possible to envisage other models according to which the Smith Market balance is not generated in retrospect by contrasting opportunist behaviours of single individuals, but can be anticipated by promoting social cohesion processes in new forms of social contracts by an increased implementation and exploitation of common goods? Is it possible to create, at social level, scope and scale economies as it happens in the enterprise world? Job precariousness, loss of identity, migration forced by need cannot be ethical objectives of a fully-developed and civil world. The birth of the European nations has been a long process not yet concluded and the consolidation of the European Union, the creation of a shared Mediterranean Area are goals even more difficult to achieve; therefore more efforts are needed to create cohesion in a widened world, avoiding falling into the trap of short-term easy profit that generates weak and ephemeral development patterns. The case of Ireland, Spain and other countries are some examples of economic games that give no results or even have a negative impact. The International Organizations go through a crisis and should be reformed with new functions and powers in order to manage the globalization processes; the detailed Basel Agreements, for what concerns banking world, have not been useful to contain the financial crisis; the State assessments made by credit rating agencies have become indirect tools of financial speculation. G20 and G8 Summits have not been able to impose international rules for containing and fighting financial speculation. This has had a negative impact on the real economy, with detrimental consequences for employment. There is not yet awareness of the fact that the financial crisis has not caused only economic damages but has toppled the broadest international credit network that represented a connection among citizens, enterprises, financial world and institutions. To rebuild trust will be an operation that requires shared actions, cohesion and structural reforms.

This volume includes the abstracts of the contributions[2] of different authors, thematically divided into four sections:

The topics proposed do not claim to be exhaustive and do not represent an official interpretation of the subject matters debated during the Meeting or of other possible ideas and solutions.

Five years ago nobody could have figured out the current “Euro-Mediterranean” sceneries. Both Northern and Southern Mediterranean regions are passing through the deepest economic and social crisis occurred since After World War. The crisis of the European system is at its top: the project on which different generations of men and women from all over Europe have invested their energies in the last six ten year periods is at risk. The economic and political crisis can anyhow be transformed in order to develop a new European integration phase. South shows an analogous situation. Egypt, which is the most populated and strategic country is firstly exerting a direct democracy: its direction and the effects that will affect all the geographical area depends on what is going to happen in the next years. In the meanwhile the “Arabian Spring” is facing is hardest challenge: after abolishing part of the dictatorial regimes, next challenge will consist in overcoming its pressing economic difficulties. The actual rate of increase in GDP in Tunisia in 2011 was equal to zero. In Egypt from +7,2% in 2008 it decreased to +1,2% in 2011. In a country with almost 80 millions inhabitants who can rely upon an average annual per capita income of around 2100 € and a population mostly under 25 years old this is an unsustainable growth rate. In an area where the working-age population increases at a rate of around 2,5 millions per year, the annual employment growth rate should amount to around 3%. The relationships between these two macro-areas in the future will depend on these scenarios that today are uncertain for Both Northern and Southern Mediterranean regions. These relationships and their consolidation are very important for the whole area because they represent a stabilization element in the “South” and an opportunity to relaunch “North”, where new energies and new markets are needed. Moreover, it is necessary to restore the Neighbourhood Policy that has been in a stall phase for too long. The relationships between these two macro-areas are particularly crucial for “border countries” such as the Italian “Mezzogiorno”. With a trade rate amounting to 57,7 billions euro in 2011, Italy is the main  commercial partner of the Med Area, ahead of Germany (56,6 billions euro) and France (48,6 billions euro) and notwithstanding the strong contraction recorded in 2011 (-6,6 billions euro), in countertendency if compared to the other European countries analyzed.

In spite of the slowing down of the trading relationships with Southern Med countries in 2011, due to the disorders and fall of the leading governments in three of the five countries of this area (Tunisia, Egypt and Libya), Southern Area keeps strong trading relationships with the Med Area countries, with trading relationships equal to 12,7 billions euro in 2011 (12,4% of Southern Foreign Trade). The Med Area rate in compared to the whole of the trading relationships with Italy is lower (7,4%).  64% of trading relationships between “Mezzogiorno” and Med Area (8,1 billions  euro) concerns energy products. “Mezzogiorno” represents 61,1% of the Italian inter-exchange of energy products with Med Area, above all thanks to the contribution of Sicily and Sardinia: in fact 92,1% of energy products trading between “Mezzogiorno” and the 13 countries of the Med Area is based on  these two regions.

Focusing the attention on trading relationships, energy products excepted, the incidence of Med Area is anyhow significant: it represents  7,4% of “Mezzogiorno” Foreign Trade (4,6 billions euro). Campania and Apulia in this case are the most important regions: together they represent 61,6% of the non-energy trading relationships between “Mezzogiorno” and Med Area.

The changes occurred in the trading relationships have given a new centrality to Med Area, influencing the development of port regulations both in the North and in the South. The Mediterranean Area is no longer a limited area of transit for international flows of goods that go from East to West. It is becoming an autonomous inter-exchange region thanks to the effect of the increase in the intra-Mediterranean flows due to the development of Southern-Eastern countries. The shipping development feels the effects of these transformations and, even in periods of crisis, it actively contributes to the increase in trading relationships. These are the problems of the Mediterranean Area and its economic reality, but the strategies adopted so far by its different countries are sufficient or new strategies are needed in consideration of the repeated failures of the Mediterranean policies, among which the non application of the free exchange in 2010?

Many problems are still unsolved in the South: food deficit, lack of water resources and their bad distribution, traditional and undeveloped agriculture, high population growth rate, scarce employment opportunities for graduated and qualified people, strong migration flow processes, social inequalities, scant attention to the creation of an internal entrepreneurship and to the exploitation of local resources and knowledge, urban concentration and  proliferation of abusive settlements and ghettos, low cooperation level, unsteady monetary systems e not fully developed financial systems. These are all important issues for the development of these areas. Europe could solve them by creating the conditions for a joint development. In order to solve the infrastructure problems, it would be necessary to establish a development bank for the Mediterranean Area, where different countries could converge in a symbiosis between Islamic Finance and Traditional Finance. The European Investment Bank does its best but, in the Islamic view, it remains a European bank.

The current framework of social conflicts and wars that affect the whole Med Area represents the failure of the EU Mediterranean policies, of the EU economic cooperation and social and territorial cohesion policies. This produced the “German Peace” in Southern Europe countries (Mediterranean Europe) and the “American Peace” in Southern countries with the consequent current destabilization processes. In the perspective of going beyond the old Euro-Mediterranean policies and contrasting the new colonial temptations of Western countries in this Area, the role of “Mezzogiorno” and of Southern Europe countries is crucial for a regeneration of the Mediterranean meso-region societies and economies. Young people play a central role in determining the revival of productive systems, education projects and Community in a framework of a dialogue increasingly oriented to new world economic and cultural partners (BRIC economies) outside Western Area and Eurocentrism. Past experiences such as co-development projects are no longer sufficient to theorize and implement dependency mechanisms. They must be replaced by an approach based on needs and aspirations of young people living in specific areas and in specific countries. The creation of “Solidarity Rings” between North and South in the Mediterranean Area is not something that can be imposed from above but it has to derive from the ability to find concrete solutions in a synergic relationship aimed at strengthening the autonomous choices and inclinations of the two areas.

The crisis generated in 2008 is deeply influencing the European economies, among which Italian economy. A development has been recorded only in some European East economic systems such as the Polish system, but the growth rates recorded are not sufficient to guarantee adequate employment levels. The negative effects of this situation on GDP are reflected above all on future generations. The changes occurred in the labour market rules and in the pension systems are not sufficient to relaunch employment. It is necessary that development, strongly restrained by the ties imposed by the public balance, restarts. The case of countries such as Greece, Spain and Portugal are the evident demonstration that the crisis does not affect only economy but it is also an institutional crisis and the idea of Europe itself goes through a crisis.

Italy and particularly its “Mezzogiorno” is an emblematic case. The deterioration of the international economic scenario started in 2011 stopped every recovery perspective after the crisis occurred in 2008. In “Mezzogiorno”, these two crises which followed one another in a so short time are having disastrous effects: after having totally missed the “rebound” that affected the rest of the Country in 2010, Southern areas and isles recorded a production recovery only in 2011 but it has been abruptly interrupted by the difficulties occurred in the last period. The negative effects of this situation will last until 2013 and will probably compromise the growth rate in the next years as well. On the whole, the expected productive level for “Mezzogiorno” in 2014 is 10% less than the rate recorded before the crisis in 2007, against an average recession of 4,2 percentage points recorded by the whole Country. This trend contributes to deepen the internal territorial differences.

On the whole, between 2012 and 2015, according to the last Government forecast, the Italian GDP should record an average increase of 0,4% per year in actual terms, with a decrease only in the first year. According to the forecast of the Regional Observatory Banks-Enterprises of Economy and Finance this very limited recovery rate derives anyhow by a slight increase recorded exclusively in the central regions (0,9%) and in North-East (0,8%), while North-West will substantially record a steady trend in the manufacturing sector (0,2% per year) and in “Mezzogiorno” GDP will decrease at an average rate of 0,4% per year. The Italian population exceeds 61 millions. Young people from 0 to 9 years old in Italy are less than 11, 5 millions, while old people exceed 16 millions. This confirms a demographic crisis that Italy is undergoing similarly to other Western countries.

The question to be asked is whether young people are decreasing in number or the Country has become an adverse place where to live. Both in the first and in the second case, it would be worth implementing a youth-oriented policy that seems to be really a basic restarting point for growth. The current society has become more complex and, consequently, it has new needs. The transformations occurred in the last ten-year periods, even determining positive changes for most people, for particularly weak population groups implied new risks of poverty and social exclusion that would require adequate policies. The groups who have mostly been affected by these negative consequences are disadvantaged children and young people who risk social exclusion because of family, economic and cultural deficits, consumer pressures and loss of values. Moreover, the model they compare themselves with is a full availability of resources and this worsens their feeling of exclusion. The most significant aspect of the social exclusion affecting disadvantaged young people is the lack of the sense of future induced by the social system, since it disproportionately amplifies the objectives fixed, progressively restraining, at the same time, the actual opportunities to achieve them. To fight social exclusion is not exclusively an ethical commitment but represents the optimum starting point for the implementation of any development pattern.

It is then useful to add that a definition of social exclusion, and consequently also of poverty, must be identified, in order to enable decision-makers to implement opportune interventions in the framework of public and social policies able to effectively match the needs of the most needy categories. To contrast poverty and social exclusion is one of the strategic objectives repeatedly indicated by the European Council. Particularly, in 2000, a new Social Policy Agenda was adopted in Lisbon. This Agenda defined a triple strategy aimed at favouring integration between economic policies and occupational and social policies, thanks to the agreements that all the political and institutional subjects should contribute to implement for achieving the objectives fixed.

The intention is to implement Lisbon objectives modernizing the social protection model, investing on people and fighting for preventing and/or abolishing poverty and social alienation, fostering the integration and participation of all citizens in the economic and social life. One of the most urgent challenges consists in balancing the assistance-oriented policies aimed at indemnifying marginalization by fostering active inclusion policies. Therefore the fight against social exclusion started at Community level involves the sense of responsibility of the Member States and of their national, regional and local authorities, together with all the actors and social parties concerned and the non-governmental organizations involved.

In the last ten years, against an increasing inadequacy of the social system to new needs and risks, Italy has tried to reshape its welfare policies, but the results are still largely insufficient.

The differentials among the different countries in terms of wealth, employment and social life standards are determining mass movements not only at intra-European level, favoured by Schengen Agreement, but also migration flows from other regions of the Mediterranean Area, especially for young generations. Migration flows have assumed a crucial role in Med Area in the perspective of European Policies and of national States and institutions. Italian population (included in the range 25-39 years old) that is representative of people able to guarantee their full activity and vitality for the development of the Country, amounts to 18,4 millions. On the basis of the current demographic trend, in 2030, this population range will drastically decrease of around 2 millions attesting the need to evaluate, from a critical point of view and as a real opportunity, the increasing dynamics of the migration flows. It is unanimously agreed that the mutual convenience of these migration flows necessarily requires foreign people integration in the destination countries. In an ever-increasingly multiethnic and multicultural society, these processes are necessary for a pacific, profitable and constructive common life. Poor or emarginated groups could become breeding-grounds for intolerance and could generate the risk of social tension. Substantially, starting from the idea that the integration process cannot be disjoint from the acceptance of culture and habits of immigrants, it is necessary to redefine new cooperation policy strategies in order to favour the endogenous and self-propulsive development of country-of-origin populations. It is therefore urgent to define a policy that is not based on cooperation but rather on the promotion – in countries with migratory pressure – of strategies and policies aimed at the local development. In the next years Italy and the whole European Union will have to face the migratory flow from the developing countries and, at the same time, they will have to implement a correct and rational integration policy. Then the role of intercultural policies will be basic for the pacific development of the Med Area.

Italy has often been referred to as “the Old Continent’s Door”, for this reason it can be considered as the absolute protagonist of a phenomenon destined to spread like wildfire.

The great political, social and economic ferment that has affected a very wide area of North Africa in the last months makes very relevant the topic connected with the dynamics of migration flows oriented to the Northern Coasts of the Mediterranean Basin. Almost every day, in fact, boats full of migrants trying to sneak into European countries, and especially in Italy, defy the roughest seas.

The “Arab Spring” and the political turmoil which characterizes Southern Mediterranean countries, that is the reason of the migration of thousands of refugees on the Italian coasts, require interventions aimed at solving these problems in a peerless social, economic and geopolitical context whose developments, effects, opportunities and critical points are difficult to forecast.

To study and investigate more in detail the demographic dynamics of these areas then represents a crucial point for institutions and agencies operating at EU, national and regional level. It is not sufficient to quantitatively and statistically observe the phenomenon of the presence of foreign people in advanced development countries, but it is necessary to “read” from an economic and productive point of view the international migration flows, their scope and the deriving increasing economic difference (in terms of per capita income) and social difference (in terms of life conditions) in a comparison between origin and destination countries.

The current economic crisis, together with critical life conditions and easy money opportunities can favour social drifts among immigrants, increasing criminality and illegal activities even in areas characterized by a low crime rate. In a situation of crisis where most part of the Eurozone countries have difficulties in keeping a steady trend in the occupational level, the crime sector that  – in its manifold aspects – has never recorded a decrease, can become a sector of full employment, especially for young people. Moreover, the new manpower from countries where crime is low or not-organized tends to strengthen crime networks even in the countries of origin, where this phenomenon cannot be easily contrasted by the weak local security systems.

Europe is the main gravitational pole of the overall global flows of transnational crime. For what specifically concerns the  Mediterranean Area, analyzing the documentation produced by the most accredited research institutes, it has been estimated that crime organizations (known as “mafia-type organizations”) directly or indirectly control around a sixth (around 16%) of the whole world crime market, in terms of monetary value deriving from the incomes generated by illegal activities and  the organized crime totals a turnover that corresponds to a bit less than one-tenth of the GDP of all the Mediterranean countries (around  8%). Therefore, in a hypothetical classification, it could represent the fourth economy of the area. Young people are those who most suffer the effects of this situation, since in countries with an average high unemployment rate they most undergo the unavoidable influence that this situation has on the labour market.

Mafia-type organizations have undergone significant structural transformations: from local organizations they have been transformed into global enterprises, but they are deeply rooted in the territories of origin, where they exert their economic activities and where they often influence the whole social system, the markets of goods and the markets of productive factors (labour market included). For some aspects mafia-type organization presence can be considered a form of “perverse social capital”. The presence of mafia-type organizations upsets the market functioning reducing the economic opportunities of the territory. Foreign Direct Investments are strongly discouraged by the presence of mafia-type organizations. This is the case of some provinces of the “Mezzogiorno” of Italy.  Therefore the presence of mafia-type organizations not only implies direct and indirect costs connected with the control of enterprises and to missed productive investments and market (and institution) distortions but it also compromises the future of the local economy due to the loss of the most educated classes of young people and the reduction of the incentive to invest in human capital. The negative effects of this situation in the short term are connected with the decrease in the economic growth rate, but negative consequences are expected in the middle-long term as well. The erosion of human capital, the most important productive factor for long-term growth in a modern economy and for starting up modernization processes, risks to irreparably modify the territories characterized by the crime presence and to generate wounds that can difficultly be healed.

The current market globalization scenario has made this challenge even more complex, projecting “Mezzogiorno” areas onto a system dimension that completely reshapes its role and perspectives, determining negative demographic gradients with the result of impoverishing the quality of local human capital and favouring brain drag processes for young generations. “Mezzogiorno” areas risk to become exporters of young human resources sustaining anyhow all the relating feeding costs. The phenomenon of spontaneous migration from other areas of the Mediterranean Basin tend to destabilize the already precarious balance of territories delayed in development further favouring the break-up of the social tissue or fostering forms of racial revanchism.

In an essentially relational economy, such as the contemporary economy and particularly in contexts such as Southern Areas of Italy or other “Mezzogiorno” areas characterized by the prevailing presence of small and medium-sized enterprises, fragmentary social tissues and scant efficiency of public administration, development and competitiveness can be built essentially through the cooperation among different subjects and therefore derive from the level of compactness of the whole system. It is not by chance that in Europe cohesion policies have been developed with the aim to establish common objectives in the European framework, but unfortunately these common objectives have not been fully achieved or are destined to not be achieved at all because too much importance has been given to economic policies and finance, neglecting the interregional and international social cohesion policies  Therefore, in order to newly relaunch the fragmentary “Mezzogiorno” economies it is necessary to create a system and to build cohesion.

The term cohesion in Physics is referred to the intermolecular attraction by which the elements of a body are held together. By the term social cohesion we refer to factors such as mutual trust, easy interactions, coordination level.  Briefly, it is the capacity of the components of a determined territorial context to find unifying strategies for a common project, nothwithstanding centrifugal forces. The discussion about the existence and the effects of these virtuous qualities poses the problem of the “social capital” nature and quality, that therefore assume a specific importance and, for some aspects, represent an actual social emergency if considered in the framework of the partial failure of the public intervention in these areas and of the prolonged difficulty in decreasing their development delay. It is a commonly shared opinion that social capital accumulation must become a priority need in the policy maker’s agenda. Anyhow, an isolated policy strategy is not sufficient for reducing the difference. New development strategies for “Mezzogiorno” are based on the need to reconstruct trust and dialogue among State, economy and society, and between public sharing and particularism, recovering the compromised trust relationship between governors on the one hand and citizens and entrepreneurs on the other hand. The low employment rates, the low per capite income and the low quality of life are negative factors that induce young people to migrate, thus determining a brain drain flows. Is it really difficult to stop brain drain flows? It is possible to stop this phenomenon by creating minimum essential good conditions in the territory of origin so that young people can apply in a satisfactory way their knowledge and creativity both at personal level and at Community level. In Southern Italy’s society intelligence is not rewarded; obedience and trustfulness are preferred. Nepotism, patronage system, dynamics of “elimination by competition” prevail upon a “competition based on quality of offer”. The contradiction between the presence of a rich and broad human capital and the indolent inactivity of the governing classes has its roots in the difficulties to translate the conspicuous tangible and intangible resources of Southern Italy into social capital. It is not by chance that the Community policies, for 2014-2020 planning period, once again insist on the need to produce social cohesion as a development presupposition and factor.

Building social cohesion on development projects could be a commitment for young people who do not wish to emigrate. Unfortunately public system and society are too fragmentary and shuttered and are more and more neutralized by the increasing trend to a techno-bureaucratic centralization. An operational unitary and converging cohesion strategy able to give direction and competitiveness to the high level creativity of “Mezzogiorno” regions is missing.

The increasing social inequality in the case of “Mezzogiorno” of Italy is remarkably combined with an increasing territorial inequality. Young generations feels the negative effects of this process, and a singular and terrible paradox derives from this situation: they are the most advanced actors of “modernization” of Southern areas (even from the civil point of view, as in the case of demonstrations against mafia and racket system etc.), because they have invested in a training and knowledge pathway and, at the same time, they are the victims of a motionless society which “expels” its best energies. Migration flows from South to North in Italy, or even abroad, are a silent phenomenon that anyhow has achieved a great scope. It has been firstly perceived by Southern Italy’s inhabitants and then it has become the subject of statistics. Between 1997 and 2010 the net loss of “Mezzogiorno” population achieved a rate of more than 800,000 units, equal to a migration average of 1,7 millions units against 900,000 people who have come back to their country of origin.

In the three-year period of highest migratory intensity (from 1961 to 1963) 300,000 people per year migrated towards Northern regions. Now we are facing a new exodus. And the reasons of these migratory flows are not different from the past, nothwithstanding the undoubted economic and social progress achieved. The difference between labour demand and supply in Southern economic system is still significant.

One of the main faults of the European policies is to have not much invested in the construction of the “Common House”, beyond the mere institutional structures. This explains why we do not have European Universities, European private banks, European enterprises, etc. The construction of the Common House is much more important than the Monetary Union and would create more work opportunities for younger generations. On the contrary, through regional policies and structural funds, local economic opportunisms have been favoured, not creating development and employment. Moreover these policies have not been effectively implemented.

Lisbon Strategy, utopian development tool, assumes youth-oriented policies as a transversal strategy that should guide the actions of the EU Member States. It involves all the EU Member States, committing them to implement innovative system actions aimed at: improving competences and developing opportunities for young people in accordance with the needs of the knowledge society; accelerating mobility of students, workers, researchers; improving the general level of education and reducing the number of young people who prematurely stop their school studies. Moreover, it identifies as a priority objective, especially in the less developed areas, the rapid implementation of labour market inclusion policies and of social inclusion policies for disadvantaged classes, as well as the development of entrepreneurial spirit among young people.