(17 Jun 1995) Italian/Nat
As international leaders concluded business Saturday, the last official day of the G7 summit, there was one question that many local residents were still asking.
Who is Lamberto Dini?
As the Italian prime minister walked through Halifax he was cheered by the friendly Canadian crowds.
But many of the people shaking his hand had no idea who they were greeting.
VOXPOP:
(Question: If I said the name Lamberto Dini to you, would that mean anything?)
"No."
(Question: Do you want to take a guess at who it is?)
"I haven't got a clue."
VOXPOP:
"No, I'm not sure who that one is. Mitterrand? I'm not sure.
(Question: If I told you, if I said the name Lamberto Dini, would that mean anything?)
"Yeah, that's the Italian leader. That's the one I was saying when I saw the Japanese leader at first."
While the other leaders had huge crowds of media covering their every move, Dini's press conferences were sparsely attended.
Often there were more security personnel than journalists.
Even the Italian newspaper La Repubblica relegated their prime minister to page 14.
And the issue on many Italian journalist's minds is Italy's credibility within the G7 nations.
SOUNDBITE:
"So I guess that with his competence, he's doing a good job in creating a nice feeling about the credibility of Italy."
SUPER CAPTION: Fernando Masullo - RAI Television
Dini is well-respected in financial circles and speaks good English, an
asset at the leaders' meetings.
And Italy needs every advantage it can get, as its ever-changing political leadership and relatively small size has hurt its standing among G-7 participants.
SOUNDBITE:
"Both Italy and Canada are the smallest players in terms of their economy, and there are those that would argue that neither of them deserve a seat at an economic summit, that instead countries like China, Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea have much larger and much more important, and in fact growing economies. Whereas certainly Italy's and Canada's economies are rather pale by comparison."
SUPER CAPTION: Irving R Levine - NBC Television
Italy hosted last year's summit in Naples and hosted two others previously, both in Venice.
Those summits were very lavish affairs, drawing criticism from some circles, but praise from others.
Irving R. Levine has covered all but one of the previous G-7 summits for NBC News.
SOUNDBITE:
"The Italians have run very successful summits. The summits in Venice were certainly among the most interesting, and from the point of view of the leaders and everyone covering the Venice summit, it was fun. Because traveling around on the canals and motorboats was, of course, a great experience. But even as the leader or the host nation of the summit, the Italians didn't play the role that some of the summit hosts have."
SUPER CAPTION: Irving R Levine - NBC Television
While Italy continues to try to find its place among the world's economic leaders, Haligonians continue to try to figure out, who is Lamberto Dini?
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