by Torchwood » Sun Feb 20, 2011 11:36 pm
Northern Italy is indeed one of the most productive parts of Europe - very good export oriented high end manufacturing, a bit like the Germans, but with more creative flair.
Southern Italy was never European, it was and is Byzantine, like Greece. Is it changing, improving? In parts - the Mafia are not the power they were in Sicily, and Apulia is almost a detached part of the North. In Naples, Basilicata and Calabria the local mafiosi are as powerful as ever. Sympathies to Padania.
Pessimism is the soft option.