Update about Italy

I like to follow events in those countries where I have lived for a while or to which I feel attached. One of them is Italy (the others are the UK, Chile and the US). I try to keep updated reading everything on Italy in the Spanish media, and also in The Economist. But my preferred method is to read every Sunday the column by Eugenio Scalfari in La Repubblica, the newspaper that he founded some time ago. I like many things from Scalfari, like his attention to economic details, must most of all I admire his firm commitment against populism and corruption, and in favour of a federal Europe (the state should be Europe and national governments should sooner rather than later evaporate in a borderless Europe). The good news from recent columns is that Berlusconi has very difficult his return to politics, and that finally it seems that the forces of democracy and justice are prevailing and it is very unlikely that the blackmail of Berlusconi has any chance of having any real bite. Is democracy finally defeating populism and corruption? That is what Scalfari seems to imply. He believes that the Partito Democratico, in spite of his divisions, still has enough human assets to sustain a solid government under prime minister Letta, and that the centre right will have to realize that its future lies in reforming itself to become a respectable European centre-right instead of a clan under the ownership of a corrupt tycoon who once decided to vertically integrate into politics instead of contracting out favours from corrupt politicians.