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tv   HAR Dtalk  BBC News  April 28, 2020 12:30am-1:01am BST

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after recovering from coronavirus. he says there are "real signs" that the country is passing through the peak of the pandemic. he warned that lifting the restrictions too soon could lead to a new wave of deaths. donald trump has held a coronavirus news conference after having earlier cancelled it. he said his strategy to combat the virus with more tests was working and that all parts of the country were getting better. more than 50,000 americans have died during the outbreak. —— nearly 56,000 americans have died during the outbreak. and seven weeks since italy announced a lockdown, the country will lift some restritions from next monday. parks, manufacturing, and construction businesses will be the first to reopen. people will also be allowed to exercise outdoors. those are the headlines. now on bbc news, it's hardtalk.
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welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. italy is the european country hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic. it took a virulent hold in northern italy in february and now the national death toll stands at more than 25,000. italy's healthcare system has been stretched to the very limit and the social and economic consequences, well, they threaten to blight the country for years to come. maybe the rapid spread of covid—i9 in lombardy was something to do with the ageing population
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or the italian way of intergenerational contact. at first, the government tried to isolate the worst—affected areas from the rest of the country. it wasn't until thousands of people had been infected that prime minister giuseppe conte announced a nationwide lockdown on march 9. vibrant, noisy italy was plunged into fearful silence. except in the hospitals, which were filled to overflowing with the victims of this cruel virus. mostly the elderly and the vulnerable. the death toll exceeded 10,000 before march was out. with intensive care units full, doctors had to make desperate decisions about who to
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prioritise for treatment. all the while, the healthcare workers themselves were in grave danger. in one of the worst—hit towns, bergamo, staff at the papa giovanni hospital warned the authorities theirfacility had become highly contaminated and was now a major source of new infection. one of its intensive care doctors is lorenzo grazioli who spoke to me from the hospital. i tell you that the hospital, nurses, doctors, technicians, whoever, answer like a concert opera house, 0k. nobody, itell you — nobody stepped down from it. did you ever come close to despair, to losing a sense of hope and maybe even motivation?
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well, motivation is one of the things you have not to lose. otherwise, in this situation, you will be defeated by circumstances. there will be, in the future, when all these things will finish, there will be time to reflect. now is not the time. now we have to fight. italy's coronavirus problem has now plateaued. the government has taken the first small step to ease the draconian lockdown. but enormous damage has been done. the country's weaknesses have been exposed. a debt—ridden inefficient economy now faces a prolonged recession, and in the midst of economic vulnerability, there are fears of a resurgence of italy's age—old scourge, organised crime, the mafia. one of those sounding the alarm is the veteran mayor of palermo in sicily, leoluca 0rlando.
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italy sits at the heart of europe, but it looks much more vulnerable than many of its neighbours. are the country's leaders capable of meeting this once—in—a—lifetime challenge? minister vincenzo amendola, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much. italy is going through a tragedy. your death toll as a result of coronavirus now stands at more than 25,000. you have clearly suffered more than other countries in europe. why do you think that is? we saw the pandemic, the spreading in our country before the others, before the other european countries, and they followed us two weeks later than we started, at the end of february. until now, we are working a lot, the curve already is touching
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the plateau, is coming down, but of course, we are concerned about some regions still under pressure. we saw that it was necessary, solidarity, union among all countries, at a european level, and this solidarity meant, also, a system of co—ordination for all the action and all the distribution of medical equipment that is necessary to win this battle. so in order to go on, our country worked a lot, just because we were hit before, in order to help all the others to go out of this time. minister, you talk about solidarity, and in a short while, we will talk about solidarity with the eu, but let us talk about domestic internal solidarity first. do you believe that your government still has the trust of your people, given the way you have handled this crisis?
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if i look at the polls in terms of support to the prime minister conte, they are quite positive. but we know that the reality at this moment after two months of lockdown and a lot of sacrifice that italian people did, it needs not to be considered as the only elements in order to be safe, because now the stress of our government is to boost the economy, is to support the social cohesion and a lot of people who were obliged to stay home. social cohesion means to help the most fragile sector of our society, means to help the country to be resilient in this hard time and to plan a second phase, that is the recovery. the recovery, the reopening is very complex, we have to take care of the health of the people first of all. at at the same moment, try to give to our society the way
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to go out from the sacrifice that they did in the last two months. on this question of trust and being straight with your people, isn't it time to actually talk of regret, of mistakes that were made, particularly allowing that football game to go ahead — atalanta versus valencia on february 19 and then party political leaders, indeed, your own party political leader, involved in a don't stop milan campaign, keeping the city open, which went on right until the very end of february when it was quite clear that a crisis was unfolding. it might be better for your relationship with the people to say "we got this wrong." i would like to say that many, many political leaders made mistakes, notjust in terms of leaders from the government party, but also the opposition, and most of them, they regret because in the beginning it was not understood, the powerful meaning
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of this spreading. many prime ministers around europe, they regret many delays in action. so the initial part of the spreading was not understood very well by many countries and by many political leaders, in the government, in the opposition. so it is not a questionjust to regret, but the issue that we were confronting ourselves with something unprecedented, in the history of our continent and especially on a global level. i understand that point. it is fair for you to make that point, but nonetheless, the corriere della sera newspaper has looked at it in a thorough investigation in the failurings of national and regional government to co—ordinate properly, and in particular, failures to deliver vital protective equipment to hospitals, vital failures when it came to understanding that many of your hospitals had become
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breeding grounds for the virus. —— failings of national and regional government. do you think there are really important lessons that you must now learn about the weaknesses in your healthcare system? 0n the healthcare, if you speak about the medical equipment, means masks and ventilators, it was a problem that we had all over europe, because as you know the production and the chain related to this particular medical equipment, unfortunately, we had to organise as the eu immediately. italy set up a system of national production immediately and all european countries did it, because this was an unprecedented emergency that we have to face. if you are speaking about the relation between the country, the government and the region, of course there was need for co—ordination because the health system is also under the leadership and management of the region. but this particular issue,
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of course, did not mean that there was lack of co—ordination. we should have worked, and we have worked side—by—side to try to avoid all the particular problems. in terms of the lockdown, a decision has been made to begin a slow process of easing the lockdown, i believe, on may 4. how nervous are you that that could bring a second wave, a new wave of spread of the virus? this is a huge point that we are working notjust on the national level, but also at the european level. we need to have an exit strategy as the european commission propose and we need to work together because we do not know, until we have a vaccination available, how it is possible to completely defeat covid—i9. so the second phase, the reopening, could not be fast,
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should be slow and well—organised and need some chain to reactivate it and industry and manufacture companies that start to work, like some are already doing means they also need to reorganise in terms of security and health protection in their fields of work. so it is a slow process that we are going to deliver already in the next week because we have to be prepared far more in advance than may 4. you're europe minister, and the italian flag stands proudly beside the european flag in your office, but do you really think the european union gets it when it comes to the scale of italy's problems right now? your economy is devastated. your industrial production number went down by more than 16% in march alone. you're facing a profound economic crisis now. you talk of solidarity with europe,
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but do you see any real signs of eu solidarity and understanding? i see it, i have to be honest. i saw notjust in the apology that ursula von der leyen and charles michel, the president of the european council, did it. because, at the first part of the spreading of the covid—i9, there was not, let's say, a clear action towards italy. but then something moved. european commission, they took an initiative in terms of economic help. the european central bank intervened in order to support the resilience of the italian economy. your former prime minister enrico letta, he — a couple of weeks ago he said that he worried that the european union was showing signs of the trump virus, that it was a question of germany first, belgium first, netherlands first, rather than true community, united spirit.
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many italians today still believe that is true. many italians, of course, when they saw this tough period that we were going on, of course, they were asking for more europe — a europe intervention. and i think that i know that this feeling of dissatisfaction is coming also from the fear of some adventure that europe did in the past. we still have in mind the last economical crisis that we lived, ten years ago, while europe didn't react immediately. i think that european commission, european central bank and european council took decisions in four weeks that probably in the past we spent four years to wait on. so what we are having now is a more common and co—ordinated response that is helpful, because we think that no country can manage alone, because we have not the financial
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crisis on the stock exchange. what we have now is a crisis of the genuine value of the real economy, in terms of distributing, in terms of exports, that is linking all the 27 countries. indeed, minister. i understand you're trying to put a positive spin on it, compared with some of your italian colleagues. but nonetheless, the reality is that your prime minister, mr conte, has insisted that in the end there must be debt sharing, through the form of some sort of so—called corona bonds. that is that the entire eu, including the richest countries, like germany, should take on, assume, some of the debt burden that now sits on countries like italy. the germans have repeatedly said no, and they didn't say yes even in the summit yesterday. so why are you being so positive? no, this is not a correct, let's say, report from the meeting of yesterday.
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i'm not positive because i'm europe—timistic. let's say i have a realistic approach to what we are living and what we have to do. and yesterday we agreed on some big steps forward, three fiscal tools that were already, let's say, agreed yesterday in terms of delivering before i ofjune. maybe, minister, italians look at the story of greece over the last few years, and they see that in the future, italy's existence in the eu is going to be very, very miserable. because, however you look at it, your national debt as a result of what has happened in the recent months is going to spiral way beyond the 2.5 trillion euros it stands at. your national debt is going to be 180% of your national income very soon. that's what the experts say. and, as long as that is the case, your future in the eurozone is going to be miserable. i think your prediction is quite
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miserable, in the sense that what we saw from the history of greece and the last crisis that we lived was a big lesson that we learned as europeans. indeed, for this reason, between march and now we took many more decisions than were taken ten years ago, just in four years. so many recovery work was done also in terms of unity. of course, there are 27 national interests, and they have to find a compromise. but we know that, for this particular crisis, we have to be united. you keep telling me about solidarity, and you're giving me the technical reasons why you believe the eu is doing what is necessary for italy. but look at the public opinion. look at the public opinions, minister. in your country, i'm looking at a couple of polls. 0ne survey — 59% of italian said the eu no longer makes sense. in another poll, italians describe china as a better friend of the country than germany.
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this is the reality of your politics today. italians have fallen out of love with the eu, and your political opponents on the right in italy are making huge political capital right now. i know, but i'm not speaking about another reality. i know. i have concern about this feeling about european union. but, as a politician, we have to look at the reality and to have a vision. our country, like each european country, without this alliance alone, in front of a global pandemic like this, pushing a huge risk to all the sectors of the society, can be lost. unity in european union, now, this means also defending the national interest. i know that it's not at this particular moment, because there is fear, there is rage — could be something not so popular. but, in the mid and long—term, it's the only way to defend the national interest.
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well, you must be a great optimist, because you know better than me that your government is fragile. you represent a centre—left party, but you also know that the league party on the right, led by mr salvini, is many points ahead of your party and the other coalition parties in the opinion polls. if there is to be an italian election in the coming months, it looks very likely that the league and its other allies on the extreme right will take control in italy. that, to many europeans, is a source of real concern. my big concern nowadays is to protect the country from the pandemic that it's living, to protect the country and the people, that they are making sacrifices, and to start the recovery. then we are going to discuss about political future, political options, and so on. nowadays, our concern is another. i know that many people like about prediction for the next election,
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but this is not the main concern that they have. but my point is about powerful messaging. when salvini, mr salvini, said this just a couple of weeks ago, first we are going to defeat the virus, then, he said, we are going to have a big rethink on europe, and if it helps, we will say goodbye to the eu without even a thank you, that's the message that's getting through to many italians. this is a clear political message. i mean, there are options. there are people who support european union alliance in order to change it, to strengthen it, to make it more resilient, to update it, because we see that the risk and the opportunities that we are living nowadays on the global level are changing. some others, they think, like it happened also in the uk, that going out from the alliance is a better choice. one final thought, and i've been speaking to the mayor of palermo, leoluca 0rlando. he's been in that position for many years. he says that, such is the economic
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hardship as a result of this coronavirus in sicily, he worries that the organised criminals, the mafia, are going to make a big comeback. he says a den of mafia jackals is now ready to exploit the new poor. there is a great risk here of an alliance cemented by despair. how can your government ensure that doesn't happen? ah, we're working on it. we're working together with the judges that are on the frontline to fight against the mafia. this is a concern that we are really aware of. leoluca 0rlando is right, and we are working, because all the measures that we are having now, in terms of support, also the people, the companies, the entrepreneurs, means that of course they have to be channelled in the correct way, and never, ever take the risk to some infiltration of the illegal organisations. so this is a concern
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that is really aware for us, for the system of — the bank system, for all the government that is involved in this social protection action that is in place. we've talked about the health crisis. the economic crisis. how long, in your view, is it going to take italy to recover from what has happened? in terms of, of course, defeating the covid—i9, as we know on the global level, on the world health organization is mentioning, we are going to defeat this. this is when there will be the vaccination. the european union has also a line of budget spending now in order to boost the research against the vaccination. there are many companies, networks of researchers, that are working all over europe. so the first point that we have in the agenda is to defeat, with the vaccination, all the risk.
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in terms of economical recovery, in terms of social cohesion, we are working, we are side—by—side, all the 27. because faster — stronger is the solidarity, faster will be also the resilience and the recovery of the internal market union, the competitiveness of european union in front of the world, and also the capability of our industry and chain of value, to recover in terms of exports. so we know that we have to make it work, that we belong. european commission, central bank, they are with us, and now the 27 are moving altogether. minister amendola, i thank you very much indeed forjoining me on hardtalk. it was a pleasure. thank you very much.
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hello. april thus far for the most part has been marked by dry, warm, and sunny days but the forthcoming week brings something completely different as we close out the month. significant spells of rain — it will generally speaking feel a wee bit cooler, too. but at least the pollen levels will be reduced from the sort of levels we've seen of late. eventually we will be looking towards the atlantic for our weather but in the short term it is coming at us from the near continent and across the channel. certainly as we start the new day on tuesday, there will already be cloud and ran across the southern counties of england and wales, relatively mild her underneath clearer skies across the north—east of scotland, maybe with a touch of frost with temperatures below zero. up to dry and bright to start with across the northern half of the british isles, showers developing across scotland and northern ireland and the north
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of england but further south, notice how dark some of those blues are. it will be quite a wet day and the temperature suffering as a consequence, eight, nine or ten underneath all that rain. and it will be really quite wet — ten, 15, possibly 20 mm of rain which eventually will drag its way away from the eastern side of the british isles but come wednesday, we will be looking towards the atlantic to see another belt of rain after a dry enough to start, the rain eventually moving through the south west of england, wales, into northern ireland, on towards the midlands to the south—east of england. in fact, many areas seeing rain before the day is done except perhaps the central and northern parts of scotland, maybe a parting shower here but essentially it is much drier. come thursday another pulse of rain will be working its way in on the southern flank of that low. the position of the low itself open to a little bit of interpretation just at the moment but if it comes a little bit further north, there's some really quite strong winds that will push in across southern parts of both
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england and wales and down towards the channel islands. another fairly unsettled day for englad and wales. —— for england. for scotland and northern ireland, it is much drier with some sunshine until later on where we push the rain into the northern isles. by friday, that low pressure is moved away but again there is the chance of pretty hefty showers coming into northern ireland, wales, the south west of england, some rain further north in scotland and perhaps something drier through central and eastern areas with the temperatures just trying to recover. by next weekend it will stay showering and pretty cool, too.
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this is bbc news, with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world: the uk's prime minister boris johnson is back in downing street, after his own fight against coronavirus, to tell the country now is the moment of maximum risk. i refuse to throw away all of the effort, and if the sacrifice of the british people and to risk a second major outbreak and huge loss of life and the overwhelming of the nhs. president trump used his first coronavirus news conference since friday to accuse china of failing to stop the spread of the illness. italy prepares to ease its lockdown — we'll look at what that might mean for one of europe's worst—affected countries. and putting it together
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during the lockdown —

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