Christmas is approaching and promises to be rather sumptuous, as Secretary Pedini declaimed. Lots of lights, while paradoxically the need to save electricity is preached to the people of San Marino. At the same time, substantial increases in the electricity bills of San Marino businesses and households were announced, after weeks of confusion, alarmism, orders and counter-orders, embarrassing conflicts of jurisdiction between authorities, political secretaries and the service company. In short, many are tightening their belts while the State spends and spends money, unfortunately not only in electricity. Some will say that these are still investments in the tourist season, and therefore it is worth filling the country with lots of lights and other energy-intensive initiatives. Unfortunately, in the face of these substantial costs for installations which have alternated throughout the year, with money borrowed and which are therefore destined to leave the pockets of all San Marino citizens, the tourism sector does not appear to be particularly healthy. Regardless of the IT, health and environmental catastrophe of the Tourism Secretariat headquarters, characterized by explosions and so on, then reclassified as a simple “overflow” of the indigenous secretary in order not to risk losing his seat, the real problems are very serious. The hotels close. The Secretariat for Tourism spends a lot of money on many events, except to see tourists staying in the surrounding area. There has always been talk of quality tourism, which everyone hopes will become an important component of the flow of visitors to the Republic, but quality restaurants close or after bombastic triumphal announcements of large investments, as in the case of Cipriani, they don’t even show up. There are no public investments in infrastructure or collaborations for synergistic initiatives between the public and private sectors. There is no overall vision of the sector in the coming years, much less a strategic plan with clear objectives and defined resources. Initiatives are piled up, with very high costs, however confusing the technical functions of organization with the political ones of strategic choices for the present and for the future. Money continues to be donated, which we do not have and which we pay very dearly, for collaborations, ad personam agreements, press offices that it is not clear what they communicate, private initiatives generously subsidized with public funds and perhaps assignments to devise monumental projects completely devoid of lenders and concrete possibilities of realisation. It seems like a tragic return to the mentality and habit of the infamous nineties, when the best policy was that of clientelism in favor of this and that, but without having the financial resources of the time, punctually squandered. The advent to the government of the protagonists of revolutionary populism and “de noantri” buzzwords has not counteracted this drift, on the contrary it has produced an even more slovenly version of it. With a state budget that travels annually with losses that exceed 75 million euros, with a mountain of debt largely thrown into the cauldron of the banks or in often useless running costs, with public health increasingly in pieces and the social security system which has only been patched with the latest reformat to save appearances, at least we can enjoy the Christmas lights. Pay off a debt.

future republic