Facciamo la dieta delle sagre per avvicinare la Basilicata al resto del mondo.

The unprecedented fi gures of money spent on ‘‘Sagra’’ in Basilicata this summer alone can surely help bring our region closer to the rest of the world and vice versa. We eat our money instead of using it to build useful infrastructures such as fast train track. Don’t get me wrong, I am not against the local festivities which we all know have their economical, cultural, gastronomical and social impact on our community, but I should think that we need to be able to go on ‘‘diet’’ reducing the amount of money we spend on these beautiful but somehow temporary expensive activities and spend more on infrastructures. We have eaten millions of Euros this summer and we will not leave anything for our children tomorrow.

A good meal of Stockfi sh – bacala – and ‘‘peperone crusc’’ and the tasteful cheese and sausages of our region would go down well with some glasses of the Aglianico wine if we eat inviting others to eat with us. After all, we are in a country where some people say that he who eats alone is unsociable. Instead, the lucanians are notably sociable, so I am sure we will be more than happy to share our healthy mediterranean diet with other people from other cities, regions and countries instead of eating by themselves. So, how do we share or invite others to eat our meal if we do not provide a means of transportation for them to get to us?

The idea is this: if we reduce the amount of money spent on the ‘‘sagra’’ and devote a big chunk of the amount on infrastructures such as the modernization of the railways systems upgrading it to the fast train status then we may be able bring foreigners to our region and even send out food out of our region to the rest of the world fast. The two fast trains operating in Italy – ITALO and Freccia Rossa are supposed to be competing between themselves but this is not happening. It is not happening because we all know how long it took Mr Della Valle and Mr Luca Cordero Di Montezemolo to get the NTV (Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori) – New Travellers’ Transport System – running. They had suffered and still suffer obstruction from the government run Ferrovia Dello Stato, which as we all know, is funded by tax payers money while ITALO has to shoulder all its expenses by itself. ITALO has literally set the standard for FS, it has raised the bar of quality which FS has not been able to meet: the posh waiting rooms at the stations, the customer services rendered at the stations and on board, providing utilities on board such meals, wifi , newspapers, care for pets etc which the FS can only dream of. Of course, for this reason ITALO is being forced and pushed towards bankruptcy by soaring the cost of electricity the main raw material of the business. EU would need to lash out against FS if it continues to have a cheaper fare for energy on the same market while ITALO has to pay more than double for the same quantity of energy. Absurd.

Of course the patrons of ITALO (NTV) have literally denounced the fact to the whole public in an open letter to we the citizens and the Italian Prime Minister whom I hope would take a step in balancing the principle of competitiveness as in all civilized nations and as per the EU law on this issue. In the meantime hope our politicians and administrators should seize the opportunity to back ITALO fi nancially, inviting them to go the extra miles and bring their train into Basilicata so that we can be able to poke our nose out of this hole and get the rest of the world to come and visit us. This can be done also by devoting a part of the millions of Euros spent on sagras to building ‘‘linea treno veloce’’ for Basilicata especially now that we are hoping to win, as a Region and most especially for Matera as a City of Culture for 2019.

Enjoy!