I’m presenting an interview that is published in today’s La Repubblica:

La Repubblica: Minister Di Pietro, there are rumours of a government reshuffle. Do you worry about you your position as Minister?
ADP: «I am willing to co-operate if it is decided to reunite the Ministries of Transport and Infrastructure. Let Prodi do the reorganizing that is necessary and he doesn’t need to worry that Italia dei Valori will interfere to keep its hat on this position.»

La Repubblica: Does that mean that you are ready to go?
ADP: «I’m saying that I am willing to relinquish my position and I acknowledge that the decision is to be taken by the President of the Council. I am saying this because I believe that it is not sufficient to have a Di Pietro or a Bianchi to run the two ministries. However, it’s obvious that this operation cannot simply be aimed at removing Di Pietro, but it has to be a wider activity that involves more than one Ministry. Merging some and giving a different specification to the tasks of others. The current division of the Ministries, after more than a year of government often gives rise to confusion, duplication or gaps and absences.

La Repubblica: I was about to ask you for your opinion on the team and its results.
ADP: «Changing the players because you think you’ll play a better game is wholly inappropriate and would discredit the good work that the government has carried out up until now. And even the Ministers who are directly concerned do not deserve that. It’s not a question of personalities or of reshuffle. The problem is the current organisation of the government, not just the individual Ministries. However I can’t be the judge of myself and give an opinion about the government that I am part of. So for this reason, I am abstaining from indicating the various Ministries that should be restructured.

La Repubblica: Can you give a few names?
ADP: «No, but I know very well how to go about it. Anyway a well-intentioned voter could look at the list of ministers to understand how they operate. It would be possible to reduce the number of Ministers from the 24 that we have now to about 15. With the associated reduction in the number of undersecretaries by about 50. I’m not naming names. But I can talk about my Ministry. It was an error, and it’s not enough to say that at the time I was opposed to it, to dismember it into Infrastructure and Transport. Everyone would work better if the whole thing were united.»

La Repubblica: So you really believe there will be a government reshuffle?
ADP: «I have not spoken to either Fassino or Prodi so I don’t have first hand information about this possibility that seems to have originated with the Secretary of the DS. Thus I can’t judge statements that I don’t know about. But the whole affair is unlikely to be followed up and so I believe it should be treated like the latest summer bubble. And I’m saying bubble so as not to say fairy story.»

La Repubblica: Minister, you are anyway talking about the “good work” of the government. But the opinion polls indicate that the voters don’t seem to be in favour.
ADP: «When you are in government, it’s not enough to produce, but you need to produce trust in those who are administered. The government deserves praise simply because in a year it has achieved the objective of sorting out the finances. One of the three points in the manifesto, together with solidarity and development. In spite of that, the public feels that we have not achieved enough. So we have to take action to remedy this before things get worse. And one way of doing this could be in merging the Ministries.»

La Repubblica: They will tell you that you are a demagogue, that you travel with anti-politics. Especially since you supported Beppe Grillo’s campaign..
ADP:«How I have been behaving demonstrates that it’s not a question of demagogy. For example, I have always said that we should reduce the number of parties and even though this puts my own party at risk, I have collected signatures for a referendum. Furthermore, I believe that Grillo’s demonstration, going beyond the colourful expressions used in Bologna, was not an act of anti-politics, but an action of true and real politics guaranteed by the Constitution. Collecting signatures for a law by popular initiative is the most political thing you can do. To talk of anti-politics thus is a demonstration of a lack of capacity to analyse and to give a response to the questions of the citizens.»