Fears over Sicily's future as euro flow stops and bankruptcy looms
A bleak combination of routine corruption, misused funds and mafia influence is taking the beautiful, troubled island to the brink of the abyss
Governor of Sicily Raffaele Lombardo will resign at the end of July, amid allegations of links to the mafia. Photograph: Luca Bruno/AP
As Andrea Vecchio heads down the corridor from his office in Palermo, two men parked behind a desk doing nothing leap to their feet to salute him. But Sicily's new assessor for infrastructure is not impressed. "Just look around," he exclaims. "No one here is doing any work at all."
Vecchio, a sprightly, grey-bearded entrepreneur and tough anti-mafia campaigner, has been drafted in to slice through Sicily's public-works red tape and tackle its idle hordes of civil servants, but even he may be too late to save the sun-drenched island's economy.
Long renowned for its sultry beauty and deadly mafia bosses, Sicily has now been dubbed "Italy's Greece", an island awash with misspent EU funds, state jobs traded for votes and a €5bn debt pile that some fear could push Italy's delicate economy into the abyss. Union and business leaders last week implored the Italian prime minister, Mario Monti, to take control of Sicily's disastrous local finances and, after credit rating agency Moody's downgraded the island, Monti himself warned Sicily could default.
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