17 October 2007

A slightly more beautiful and civilised Italy

On 4 October I was the only Minister to meet with Sig. Giuseppe Invernizzi, a member of the delegation and Director of Apa di Como e Lecco. At that time Sig. Invernizzi told me about the issue of the sale to the public of unprocessed milk direct from the producers. (article ; video)
A tiny point used as an excuse concerning the measurement of the amount supplied that would have brought about the closure of the direct selling by many milk producers.
I’m publishing Sig. Invernizzi’s letter. He and all the others in the sector that he is representing have my best wishes for the development of this initiative.

Dear Ministro Di Pietro,

At last, now that the Framework Law has been approved by the Council of Ministers at their meeting on 12 October, the automatic distributors of liquid milk have been excluded from the regulations relating to metric measurements.
Common sense and reasonableness have won out against an absurd bureaucratic stumbling block. Today our country of Italy is slightly more beautiful and civilised and the consumers are nearer to the producers. Small volumes of liquid milk will be sold directly to the consumer with an indication of a minimum “guaranteed quantity”. The farmer can give even more milk in abundance, without having to pay the penalty designed for machines that have metric measures. This is exactly the same as happens in Switzerland and in Austria.
I’m writing this letter so that I personally can offer you my thanks and so that I can thank you in the name of the Consorzio Tutela Latte Crudo {Unprocessed Milk Protection Consortium} as well as on behalf of all our consumers who in tens of thousands, with great enthusiasm, have signed the petition to Minister Bersani
To demonstrate the gratitude of the farmers in relation to all those who have contributed to this great result, the Consorzio Tutela Latte Crudo is announcing that on 11 November, the feast of St Martin, there’ll be a “Great National Festival of Fresh Milk” which will be celebrated at all the milk distribution points, on the farms and in the streets and squares.
Furthermore, just as St Martin cut his cloak in 2 to share the cold with the one who was worse off than him, we will cut the price of milk by half: on that day of the festival, the consumers will be able to buy 2 litres of milk for just one Euro.

Thanking you once more. Best wishes.”
Giuseppe Invernizzi
Secretary of the Consorzio Tutela Latte Crudo

On Friday 12 October the government approved the outline for the framework law that alters the regulations about measuring instruments so as to liberalise the commercialization of the automatic distributors for the sale of milk direct to the consumers.

Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Competitiveness of the economic system