INTERVIEW / Fascism is not the danger: Eugenio Scalfari (left) has long been a fierce critic of Italy's new PM, Silvio Berlusconi. He tells Patricia Clough what he most fears for his country now

ITALIAN democracy could be endangered, not by the presence of neo-Fascist ministers in Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing government, but by the social tensions that its policies could arouse, Mr Berlusconi's arch-opponent warned yesterday. Eugenio Scalfari, the distinguished editor of the left-wing daily La Repubblica, who had long spearheaded the battle against the old political regime before the corruption scandals sealed its fate, was contemplating its successor: a government led by Mr Berlusconi in person and including the federalist Northern League and the heirs of Fascism.

Dr Scalfari, like many influential Italians, is not as alarmed as people abroad about the presence of ministers from the extreme right-wing National Alliance in the cabinet. On the one hand, he said in an interview with the Independent, 'they have never repudiated their continuity with Fascism, their historical and cultural continuity, and particularly their derivation from the Republic of Salo' - the puppet government headed by the dictator Benito Mussolini, which ran Nazi- occupied northern Italy from 1943 to 1945 and fought the Italian partisans. That was 'the worst kind of fascism', he said.

On the other hand, however, 'I must honestly say that they are no longer Fascists now, because Fascism is unthinkable in Italy today. They are exponents of the most right-wing right in Italy, the Italian extreme right.' At the same time there was a 'danger of contagion, in Germany and also in France. We are only too aware that Italy has once already been the start of a European contagion.'

In Italy they 'are not a danger to democracy', Dr Scalfari said. He worried, however, about their future policies - their attitude to immigrants and the Catholic church. He recalled that Mussolini, in order to gain respectability, negotiated a concordat with the church which made Italy subject to church laws against, for instance, divorce and abortion, for many years, in order to win its support for his regime.

Dr Scalfari was particularly worried about the government's Reaganite laissez-faire economic ideas. The recent sackings of many tens of thousands of workers had been tolerated because at that point the government in charge was more or less centre-left. 'The sackings which will take place from this moment on will be seen as a class conflict,' he warned.

'This government which the stock exchange and the financial markets like so much . . . the stock exchange does not realise that it can do practically nothing that it wants and hopes for, because if it did, there would be riots in the streets.'

Such things, he said, 'could put democracy at risk. I am not afraid of Fascism. But they could provoke social tensions so bitter that they could create a situation of risk.'

If social or regional egoism took the upper hand and social solidarity disappeared, 'then a danger of a dictatorship could emerge'.

Another fear was that the Northern League's federalism, particularly its fiscal federalism, could effectively mean the end of the Italian state. 'A certain degree of federalism, within certain limits, would be right,' he said. But he was highly sceptical of the League's proposals that taxes be collected by local governments - the towns and the regions - and mostly spent where they originated, with only a very limited amount to be passed on

to the national government for

defence, justice and a few other 'services'.

'It would be like the European Community - we pay our taxes to our national governments and they pay their contributions to the Community. If that happened in Italy,' he said flatly, 'there would not be a state any more.'

He shared the fear of the Italian president, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, that Italy might then break up. 'I am afraid it could happen.'

The League's ideas, he went on, 'would leave the southern regions, the poorer ones, with no more (financial) means'. If this aim really was achieved, and if the rich regions kept their money, 'the south would turn into dynamite'.

Dr Scalfari had been a fierce opponent of Silvio Berlusconi long before the latter entered politics, and now has no confidence whatever in the formula devised by the media mogul - owner, among many other things, of half the nation's television networks and a huge publishing empire - to allay concern of a conflict of interests while he is in office.

Mr Berlusconi's appointment of 'three wise men' to study and propose improvements to Italy's anti- cartel laws was irrelevant, he said. For a start, 'they were nominated by the person they are supposed to supervise'. One of them was a member of Mr Berlusconi's team of lawyers.

For instance, he said, Mr Berlusconi's Fininvest company pays the state about 7bn lire ( pounds 2.9m) a year for the use of its television frequencies. The state broadcasting corporation RAI used to pay 170bn lire a year. Recently, because the RAI is in severe financial difficulties, it was reduced to 40bn. 'Faced with a situation like that, any serious government would say 'either we bring the RAI down to 7bn or Fininvest up to 40bn.

'Here there is a conflict of interest between Berlusconi the prime minister and Berlusconi the owner of Fininvest. If Berlusconi doesn't do anything and leaves the situation as it is, this is a conflict of

interest. The three wise men don't have the task of studying problems like this, they have to improve the anti-cartel laws. But what do anti- cartel laws have to do with a situation like this?'

In election broadcasts, Mr Berlusconi, when asked about his lack of experience in politics, remarked dismissively that while building up his vast empire he had faced far more difficult tasks than those confronting any prime minister. Dr Scalfari believes he has another think coming.

'Running a government is nothing like running a company if you are in a democratic state. You can run a company because you are the boss, but then a company is not a democracy.'

One might be able to govern well in a dictatorship, but in a democracy one has an obligation to take into account many other views and concerns.

The new government, he concluded, would be in some ways better than the last government of the old political order, but in other ways it would be worse. Better, because the old ones were corrupt and had basically commandeered the state for their own ends. Worse, because while the old leaders had parties with long political traditions and ideals behind them, 'these have nothing - just Fascism, small northern businessmen and the Fininvest company'.

(Photograph omitted)