Austerity in Italy? Check the traffic

Millions of people have been put on state payroll in a jobs-for-votes system.

With 960 residents and a handful of roads,this tiny village in the arid,sulfurous hills of southern Sicily does not appear to have major traffic problems. But that does not prevent it from having one full-time traffic officer and eight auxiliaries.

The auxiliaries,who earn a respectable 800 euros a month,or $1,100,to work 20 hours a week,are among about 64 Comitini residents employed by the town,the product of an entrenched jobs-for-votes system pervasive in Italian politics.

Jobs like these have kept this city alive, said Caterina Valenti,41,an auxiliary in a neat blue uniform as she sat recently with two colleagues,all on duty,drinking coffee in the towns bar on a hot afternoon. You see,here we are at the bar,we support the economy this way.

But what may be saving Comitinis economy is precisely what is strangling Italys and other ailing economies throughout Europe. Public spending has driven up the public debt to 120 per cent of gross domestic product,the highest percentage in the euro zone after Greeces. In recent weeks,concerns about Italys solvency and the shaky finances of other deeply indebted European nations have sapped market confidence and spread fears about the stability of the euro itself.

On Wednesday,Italys lower house of Parliament gave final passage to a $74 billion austerity package aimed at eliminating Italys budget deficit by 2013.

In the poorer Italian south,the Christian Democrats put millions of people on the state payroll in a jobs-for-votes system that many say has persisted under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The quid pro quo worked so long as the economy was expanding,but is now a major threat to Italys solvency. On Berlusconis watch,government expenditures including cost of public administration and defence rose to over $1 trillion in 2010 from $753 billion in 2000. Analysts say the rise stems from deals the PM has made with politicians from both the north and the south to get the votes needed to hold together his government.

In Comitini,a city council member was getting married. Cars stopped and parked beneath a no parking sign while their drivers hopped out for a coffee in the bar.

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Inside,Valenti and her colleagues said they were not much inclined to give parking tickets. We try to avoid giving fines, she said. Its a small town,we all know one another. RACHEL DONADIO