Italy's business elite capitulates

The Italian Luxury goods maker Bulgari has agreed to a takeover by its French rival and world leader in this sector LVMH. At around 3.7 billion euros this is one of the biggest transactions ever in this sector. The liberal daily La Stampa criticises the sale as a capitulation to the French and attribute it to the lacking team spirit of Italian entrepreneurs: "The majority of our entrepreneurs cultivate a cold-blooded, archaic vision of business. ... It's almost absurd. While the rest of the world casts envious glances at our Italian style and presents us as the cradle of cultivated enjoyment, we are allowing ourselves to be coarsened by television or the unsavoury bunga bunga. We also have a greedy and confused elite which is incapable of developing a common project for Italy that would meet market requirements or ... producing quality of life. This talent is difficult to imitate but easy to buy, as we can now observe."

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