SGianni del Mastro has been running the “Osteria Del Borgo Antico” restaurant in the old town of Bari for years. The menu ranges from the Pizza Margherita to the typical regional pasta “Orecchiette” to the beef roulades “Braciole pugliesi”. The 61-year-old restaurateur describes himself as a non-political person, but now existential fear is driving him onto the streets. At the weekend he took part in a protest against the high electricity and gas bills in Bari. There, several Italians symbolically burned their electricity and gas bills. Del Mastro did not. “We always paid our bills, so I didn’t do it. But we have to vent our displeasure,” he says.
A year ago, the restaurateur paid 1800 euros a month to his electricity supplier – in July 2022 it was 5700 euros. “Tourism has been very strong this summer, but now the income is no longer covering the costs. I may have to close in two or three weeks and won’t be able to open again until next spring. Otherwise we were always open all year round,” complains the entrepreneur. Del Mastro also runs a pub in the southern Italian port city. If it closes, 15 people will be out of work.
Protests like the one in Bari are currently taking place in many places in Italy: people let their electricity and gas bills go up in flames. So far it has not been a mass movement, but the symbolic actions, in which only a few dozen people sometimes take part, set a precedent. The left-wing union USB and some political groups had called for demonstrations in fourteen cities on Monday. But not only their supporters took part, but also many small business owners such as Del Mastro and retirees with low salaries.
State-owned enterprises to the backdrop
The demonstrations often take place in front of the offices of energy suppliers, above all the partially state-owned company ENI, but other representations of state or economic power also provide the backdrop. In Naples, protesters gathered on Monday in front of the headquarters of the state investment company Cassa di Depositi e Prestiti (CDP). The message is often the same: “We can’t pay the bills anymore, the government is failing us,” as one of the demonstrators in Naples said. As early as September 29, the bakers in the city took to the streets and symbolically staged the funeral of their profession. Corporate speculation, which has led to high energy prices, is also sharply condemned. The demonstrators also criticize the general inflation, especially with food.
The protests have so far not been coordinated from a central office, but are largely based on spontaneous actions by local groups. But now an initiative called “non paghiamo” (“We don’t pay”) is trying to bundle the protest over the internet. “We want to enforce a strike to pay the bills. Our goal is to bring costs down to pre-inflation and pre-war levels,” Marco Kino, a nurse from Rome, told Corriere della Sera newspaper. According to its own statements, the initiative was inspired by the “Don’t pay” movement in Great Britain, which also has supporters in France. The Italian group aims to gain one million followers by the end of November. On Monday, however, only a good 8700 supporters had registered on the website. “When we have a million, we start not paying the bills or only partially paying them. We need critical mass because we don’t want to put anyone in trouble with power and gas shutdowns,” Kino said.
