Southern Italy
Southern Italy (or southern Italy, Italian: Italia or meridional Sud Italia, Italia or even Bassa Mezzogiorno ) is the economically less developed part of Italy.
Geographical demarcation
Southern Italy is composed of the modern Italian regions that belonged to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies before the unification of Italy in 1861. These are the regions of Abruzzo, Molise, Campania, Basilicata, Apulia, Calabria and Sicily. The earlier controlled by the House of Savoy island of Sardinia is part of the Mezzogiorno.
For statistical purposes Italy is divided into five macro-regions according to the NUTS classification of the EU. The southern regions on the mainland form the macro-region "South" ( Sud ), Sicily and Sardinia, the macro-region of "islands" ( Isole ).
The Abruzzo region is wirtschaftsgeografisch counted to Central Italy, as the economic performance of the region corresponds more to the central regions. It is no longer Objective 1 region of the European Union since 2007. The Abruzzo region can be attributed purely geographical criteria central Italy. In general, this should be omitted from the mentioned historical reasons. The Sardinia region is expected for administrative reasons every now and then to Central Italy or connected to the Latium region (eg in the postal system). However, it is one of southern Italy.
The Lazio region is at the heart of the former Papal States neither historical, nor by economic geography criteria to southern Italy. One exception is located in the south of the region provinces of Frosinone and Latina who were part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
Word origin
The mezzo from [ mɛddzo ] (center) and giorno [ dʒorno ] ( day) compound term is the Italian word for " lunch ". With the Mezzogiorno, the south is generally referred to (according to the position of the sun ); derived from the word in its most common usage refers to the south of Italy. Accordingly, the term Le Midi ( lunch ) is used for the south of France.
Importance
Italy had decided in the 1950s to support the underdeveloped south with transfers from the " rich North " and the center of Italy. Reference is often made in the wake of German reunification and the following issues of the " Aufbau Ost " on the example of the Mezzogiorno. Thus, in East Germany and the Mezzogiorno productivity levels relative to the rest of the country ( northern Italy or West Germany ) in spite of the payments in the last few years at 60 percent.
2013 shall be the gross domestic product of the South ( € 17,416 per capita) 42 % less than that of the North ( € 31,094 per capita). Between 2009 and 2012, GDP declined in the South by 3.8 %, while Italy wide, the decline was only 0.4%.
The dualistic economic structure of Italy
Reasons for the backwardness of the South
- Exploitation by the north after the reunification in 1861
- Pension capitalist economy / latifundia
- Agrarian
- No natural resources
- No energy sources
- Offside position on the European market, periphery
- Poor infrastructure and traffic situation
- Organized Crime prevents economic growth over
This transformation began, especially after the Second World War. The resource- poor area and the vast big land farming was in those days a lot of young people emigrate abroad. There were only a few so-called pull factors outweighed push factors. The then only major employer in southern Italy was the steel plant of Taranto, which had several hundred employees at peak times. The steel plant was placed in the Mezzogiorno to attract more factories in the south. This strategy failed, and after the global crisis, the steel workers have been reduced to just 100 at the steel mill.
Measures against the dualism
- Establishment of the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno
- Reallocation of investment subsidies
- Improvement / expansion of infrastructure
- Investment subsidies from public funds
- Funding from European Structural Funds since 1958
- Goal: better production conditions in agriculture and industry
The measures can be divided into four phases.
In the first phase ( 1950-1956 ) focused on the development of infrastructure and incentives offered by financial inducements.
In the second phase ( 1957-1964 ) was "targeted industrialization ", in which you auswies different industrial nuclei and areas, and there had been settled, without taking into account the existing operating structure, state-owned enterprises. Private companies were not willing to settle because of the disadvantages of the South there. This can not be listed as a success, as these large farms undergone any consequence settlements by themselves. They were, so to speak " cathedrals in the desert ".
The third phase ( 1965-1970 ) is also known as " planned industrialization ". Here, similar small and medium-sized businesses were settled there, where it was assumed that these other companies would follow.
In the fourth phase ( 1971-1986 ) of the ERDF (European Regional Development Fund ) took over the money funding the Mezzogiorno. These funds basic industries were set up. It was hoped that by the establishment of other factories. This did not materialize, however, and since the accession of Spain and Portugal to the EU in 1986 economically even weaker areas dried up investments by the ERDF.
All four phases can be regarded as a failure so today, because the economic situation through improved initially, but was the labor incurred not fair and has since slowly fell back to their previous state.
In 1992 the work of the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno was set, and the Italian government started with a general funding policy of structurally weak regions, not only in the south. In agreement with the European promotion policy today measures to support local initiatives ( patti territoriali ) are regarded as particularly promising.
The relative economic weakness of Southern Italy can be seen as the starting point of the EU structural funding. The ESF (European Social Fund ) since 1958 based measures of vocational education and work-related migration. The promotion was directed particularly to southern Italy as the only region within the then European Community, which had a high unemployment rate (compared to the minimum quotas in the other European regions).