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### Viewing cable 07NAPLES118, APULIA: INNOVATION AT HOME, OUTREACH TO THE BALKANS

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Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
07NAPLES118 | 2007-11-19 20:08 | 2011-03-15 11:11 | UNCLASSIFIED | Consulate Naples

`

    VZCZCXRO0369
    RR RUEHFL RUEHNP RUEHPOD
    DE RUEHNP #0118/01 3232052
    ZNR UUUUU ZZH
    R 192052Z NOV 07
    FM AMCONSUL NAPLES
    TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6145
    INFO RUCPDOC/USDOC WASHDC 0001
    RHMFIUU/COMSIXTHFLT//N2//
    RUEHRO/AMEMBASSY ROME 0366
    RUEHFL/AMCONSUL FLORENCE 0054
    RUEHMIL/AMCONSUL MILAN 0067
    RUEHSQ/AMEMBASSY SKOPJE 0001
    RUEHTI/AMEMBASSY TIRANA 0001
    RUEHPS/USOFFICE PRISTINA 0001
    RUEHVJ/AMEMBASSY SARAJEVO 0001
    RUEHBW/AMEMBASSY BELGRADE 0001
    RUEHPOD/AMEMBASSY PODGORICA 0001
    RHMFIUU/COMUSNAVEUR NAPLES IT
    RHMFIUU/COMSERVFORSIXTHFLT
    RUEHNP/AMCONSUL NAPLES 0872

` `

    UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 NAPLES 000118

    SIPDIS

    SIPDIS

    E.O. 12958: N/A
    TAGS: ECON PGOV PREL IT
    SUBJECT: APULIA: INNOVATION AT HOME, OUTREACH TO THE BALKANS

    SUMMARY: Apulia, at the southern tip of Italy's Adiatric coast,
    is unquestionably the South's success story, with government and
    academia demonstrably committed to innovation, and the private
    and public sectors working together to build bridges to the
    Balkans and beyond.  While organized crime has not disappeared,
    its power has been seriously eroded.  Although Apulia has not
    regained the economic parity with the North it enjoyed thirty
    years ago, it is certainly doing better than its neighbors, and
    has attracted major American investments - in particular,
    Boeing, which is building the 787 Dreamliner near Taranto, and
    Advanced Technology Services, which is involved in rebuilding
    the important container port of Taranto, Italy's second largest.
     Perhaps more importantly, Apulia exudes an optimism that is
    rare in the Italian South, where skepticism and superstition
    normally hold sway.  End Summary.

    ¶2.      Apulia, inhabited since ancient times by waves of
    seafarers, and allegedly protected from invaders by the bones of
    St. Nicholas, stolen from what is now Turkey in the eleventh
    century, is putting itself back on the map after decades of
    decline.  On a recent three-day trip, ""innovation"" was the word
    the Consul General heard more than any other, starting with
    Minister of Innovation Luigi Nicolais, in Bari for a
    Confindustria networking conference, who confirmed our
    assessment that Apulia is the most likely candidate for success
    in the South, possibly the only one.  The Region's maverick
    President, communist Nichy Vendola, told us innovation was his
    number one priority, starting with the public administration.
    Vendola realizes that Apulia's most important resource is its
    people, and has reached out to several hundred prominent
    Pugliesi who have left the region (many for the United States),
    and has invited them to form a ""Rete Puglia"" (Apulia Network) to
    provide partnership and mentorship for the region's institutions
    and economy,

    INNOVATION

    ¶3.      Although Apulia's well-established universities such as
    Bari suffer, like many Italian institutions, from internal
    politics that stifles new research, the comparatively new
    university in Lecce has become a beacon of innovation.  A group
    of engineering professors who fled the bureaucracy of Neapolitan
    academia have founded the ""Ecotekne"" innovation center,
    responsible for a flurry of recent patents (one 35-year-old
    Assistant Professor already has six).  This dream team's latest
    achievement is an implant to repair paralysis caused by spinal
    cord injuries, which has already been successfully tested in
    laboratory mice.  The group is in the final phases of creating
    commercial spinoffs, funded by venture capital from State Street
    Global Investments and the Milan-based firm Quantica.  The
    University of Lecce also boasts Italy's only nanotechnology
    center, founded by a former researcher at Germany's Max Planck
    Institut.  Although Lecce's dynamic young mayor Paolo Perrone
    (Forza Italia) bemoaned the decline of the region's
    once-thriving textile industry, the bright young engineers of
    Ecotekne have created a fabric for sweatsocks that don't sweat;
    such innovations may give some of the old industries a new lease
    on life with a future-oriented focus.

    BALKAN OUTREACH

    ¶4.      For centuries a region of seafarers, many of whom
    emigrated to countries such as the U.S. over the last century,
    Apulia is now on the front lines of European immigration,
    especially from the Balkans.  The St. Nicholas connection and
    long-established sea routes have established a natural link
    between Bari and Central Europe, and, with 800 kilometers of
    coastline on the southeast extremity of the Italian boot, Apulia
    served throughout the 1990s as the point of transit for migrants
    in search of more lucrative destinations in Northern Italy or
    Germany.  Although the migrant flux has not ended, the port of
    Bari now serves as an important transfer station for these
    immigrants as they return as tourists to their homelands during
    summer vacation periods.  When asked whether Muslim immigrants
    from Albania/Bosnia/Kosovo also visited during the Eid at the
    end of Ramadan, the Port Director told the CG, ""No, they're
    completely Westernized; now they come for Christmas.""  While
    only a few years ago most still arrived in Bari by bus or train,
    now most come in cars.  The Port Authority has reached out
    through Albanian-language radio and other communication networks

    NAPLES 00000118  002 OF 003

    to provide logistical assistance to prevent traffic jams, and
    has even constructed new port facilities catering to Albanians.
    So far this year, the port has handled over 700,000 passengers
    to and from Albania alone.

    ¶5.      Regional President Vendola told the CG that, although in
    earlier years local hospitals had offered free medical treatment
    to Albanians who could not obtain specialized care at home, the
    Region has now found it more profitable to improve the medical
    infrastructure in Albania, and is now assisting the Mother
    Teresa Hospital in Tirana to attain Western standards.  The
    Region's outreach and economic interests are firmly linked, with
    Bari's Fiera di Levante, the major Southern Italian Fairgrounds,
    reinventing itself under its new President, Cosimo Lacirignola,
    as a gateway to the Balkans, with its annual fall trade fair
    featuring Albanian, Macedonian, and Montenegrin days, attended
    by prominent political figures from the respective countries.
    The region is now looking even beyond the Balkans; Bari Mayor
    Michele Emiliano told the CG that the city aspires to be ""the
    Geneva of the Mediterranean.""

    ¶6.      The region's welcoming attitude toward visitors and its
    tolerance of foreigners extends even to the man on the street.
    When we stepped into the Church of St. Nicholas, Bari's patron
    saint, for a quick look between appointments, we were soon
    joined by a local policeman who, with the intellectual breadth
    of a seasoned architectural historian, gave us a tour, making
    special mention of the fact that the church offers both Catholic
    and Orthodox services, noting also that the city had given the
    Russian Orthodox community its own church, and offering excuses
    that ""unfortunately we still don't have a mosque.""

    FURTHER CHALLENGES AHEAD

    ¶7.      Apulia's rising fortunes have come, not surprisingly, with
    a notable drop in organized crime.  A key figure in this
    development has been Bari Mayor Emiliano, Regional Secretary of
    the new Democratic Party, who as prosecutor in Brindisi became a
    prominent member of the pool fighting against the Sacra Corona
    Unita.  Although break-ins and other property crimes remain
    unacceptably high, Bari Prefect Varlo Schilardi told the CG that
    the entire province (over one million inhabitants) had
    experienced only seven homicides all year.  The Treasury Police
    have also fearlessly combated economic crimes, including
    intellectual property rights violations, seizing approximately
    USD 750 million worth of pirated goods in the past year.  They
    have also claimed victory in the battle on cigarette smuggling;
    seizures of illicit tobacco products, mostly from Greece and the
    Balkans, have dropped from over 500,000 kilos annually in the
    last decade to only 3,000 kilos this year.  The Treasury Police
    are now focusing on combating drug smuggling, loan sharking,
    extortion, and counterfeiting/piracy.

    ¶8.      Impressive as Apulia's progress is, it is still a work in
    progress.  Bari Mayor Emiliano compared himself to the driver of
    a Wild West caravan, trying to make sure the cattle don't go off
    in the wrong direction.  Regional President Vendola compared
    himself to a weaver, literally threading together the fabric of
    his region. Clearly not everyone is living the Apulian dream.
    Local Editor-in-Chief of the national daily La Repubblica,
    Stefano Costantini, told us Pugliesi are increasingly frustrated
    with their local and national politicians.  Emiliano's
    popularity has waned as he failed to deliver on numerous
    campaign promises.  Corruption scandals have targeted both
    former Regional President Raffaele Fitto and the former mayor of
    Brindisi; the latter is alleged to have taken bribes to smooth
    approval for a 600 million euro regasification plant.
    Unemployment is rampant (15% in Lecce, for example), as formerly
    prominent industries such as sofa-manufacturing are increasingly
    outsourced to China and small- and medium-sized enterprises are
    driven out of business by international chain stores.  Lecce
    Mayor Perrone lamented that, at the opposite end of the spectrum
    from the Ecotekne wonder boys are unskilled high school dropouts
    who expect the government to hand them a job.  When we suggested
    they might be retrained to help fix up some of the still
    unrestored buildings in Lecce's beautiful Baroque center, the
    Mayor was skeptical, however, they could accomplish even that.
    Not all immigrants have been welcomed, either; only a year ago
    Italian and Polish police freed over 100 Polish tomato-pickers
    working in what amounted to slave labor camps in the province of

    NAPLES 00000118  003 OF 003

    Foggia.

    ¶9.      COMMENT: Apulia, particularly its dynamic political class
    and its brilliant innovators, seems a very propitious venue for
    the Mission's Partnership for Growth.  We will actively pursue
    outreach programs and conferences to assist the region's bright
    young researchers to master the entrepreneurship skills that are
    still in the development phase and to network with U.S.
    institutions, both public and private (Ecotekne already has an
    exchange program with MIT, and is about to sign one with
    Drexel).  Clearly this is a region with bright prospects for
    American business, with a well-established infrastructure,
    highly-qualified workforce, and good access to markets.  Of all
    the regions in our large distict, it is also the most propitious
    for advancement of U.S. foreign policy goals, particularly in
    the Balkans, and an excellent opportunity for Muslim outreach.
    As Regional President Vendola told the CG, ""I'm a diplomat,
    too,"" but he made it clear, as did the rest of his political
    colleagues, Confindustria, and other economic entities, that he
    strongly welcomed close collaboration from career diplomats like
    us, and we are eager to engage.  End Comment.
    TRUHN
    "

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