The factors that enabled the territory of Friuli and
its population to express a remarkable capacity for resilience ahead of
their time have to be evaluated from the specific socio-economic context of
the Region at that time.
As previously discussed, by the mid-1970s Friuli had already embarked on an
economic development model known as the “Third Italy”. Primarily characterised
by widespread industrialisation based on small and micro-enterprises,
production was focused on consumer products and durable goods such as
furniture, household appliances, footwear and clothing. This model involved the
phasing out or replacement of 19th- and 20th-century industrial clusters
alongside the gradual integration of the system into the emerging single
European market, the European Economic Community (EEC), established in 1957. The
rapid spread of this model disrupted centuries-old social balances, even in the
area that would later be struck by the earthquake. Young people, who were
better educated than their parents, found employment easily and were more
likely to break away from the traditional family structure. The outdated mixed
farming system, symbolised by the rows of mulberry trees traditionally called ‘morar’
in the local dialect, at this point merely supplemented household incomes.
Sheds containing machines and equipment for the new micro-industrialisation now
sprang up next to old agricultural buildings, and farmers divided their time
“half and half” between the fields and the family workshop or a nearby factory.
The idea that the rapid industrialisation of the
Northeast of Italy in the last quarter of the twentieth century involved the
replacement of an agricultural economy with an industrial one only tells part
of the story. As the title of Carlo Tullio Altan's 1981 book Tradizione e
modernizzazione (Tradition and modernisation) emblematically
expresses, the two dimensions were complementary, not alternative: the second
could develop only because it was founded on the first. This was due to the
availability of manpower, cost containment, work culture, underlying social
cohesion, the key role of the family, the rational organisation of territory
and the network of personal relations in an area formed of small towns. The ‘as
it was and where it was’ reconstruction process maintained, enhanced and helped
reproduce all social and cultural components in a rapidly transforming economic
setting. It was against this backdrop that the traditional elements came to
form an irreplaceable underlying framework.
The experience of returning emigrants is a significant
example of the integration of the past and the present. The flow of labour
emigration, which restarted after 1945 due to the post-war economic context,
ceased in the 1960s. However, even before the earthquake, the phenomenon of
definitive returns of workers had begun. These were predominantly men, but also
women, who had spent a few years working abroad as seasonal migrants. Their
return brought several positive changes: it provided labour for the construction
industry during a period of increased demand; it brought back workers who had
become professionals abroad (a fact that is rarely emphasised); and it created
positive competition between the reconstruction and manufacturing sectors.
Accordingly, the idea that the earthquake in Friuli
was the catalyst for the modernisation of the Region is an enduring cliché
that has long been disproven by the facts. Another common misconception,
implicit in the Friulian saying fasìn di bessôi (we do it ourselves),
however, requires reconsideration in light of the substantial external funding
that poured into Friuli from 1976 onwards.
As early as the summer of that year, it was clear that
substantial external aid was needed for Friuli to recover. In order to restart
industrial activities following the two earthquakes in May and September and to
support the development of the local production system, a series of legislative
measures were implemented in two phases. The first period covered the years
from 1977 to 1981. In this initial phase, the Autonomous Region of Friuli
Venezia Giulia managed the State funding allocated for this purpose. These
resources could be administered locally based on legislative instruments that
had been drafted in the early years of the new Special Statute Region. This
funding was managed through intermediary bodies and structures (such as the
regional finance company Friulia), which predated 1976. As Roberto Grandinetti
has described, it was a form of “widespread” funding, within which larger
companies were able to impose their greater influence.
The second phase began with Italian Law No. 828, dated
November 11 1982, titled Additional provisions for the completion of
reconstruction and development work in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia regions
affected by the 1976 earthquake, as well as in the earthquake-stricken areas of
the Marche Region. Under this Law, the Government of the Autonomous Region
of Friuli Venezia Giulia allocated funding with subsequent provisions and
specific assignment methods. Investments were mainly directed towards
production facilities, plants and machinery, not only for companies affected by
the earthquake, but also for a wider range of industrial and economic
activities, including those outside the earthquake-stricken area of Friuli.
Significant funding was invested in the regional territory: 978 billion Italian
lire between 1984 and 1989, including 605 billion Italian lire (equivalent to
311.5 million euros) in the three-year period from 1984 to 1986 alone.
In this second phase, Friulia also managed a
significant proportion of these allocated funds. However, it was no longer a
matter of financing industrial reconstruction, but rather of supporting a wide
range of companies that had entered into crisis for various reasons. This massive
influx of funding had two effects: on the one hand, it enabled dynamic and
forward-thinking entrepreneurs to overcome difficult challenges and drive their
companies towards new production systems and markets. On the other hand, it
simply delayed the inevitable crisis of activities that were incapable of
renewal.
One of the root causes of the difficulties experienced
by many Friulian companies from the early 1980s onwards was the expansion of
the international competitive landscape, known as ‘globalisation’. In markets
where many regional products were present, new players began to emerge from
non-European contexts or countries that had traditionally supplied
semi-finished goods. This dynamic was accelerated in the early 1990s by the
collapse of Central and Eastern European and Balkan economic systems and the resulting
chain of cascading effects.
At this critical juncture, the very characteristics
that had driven the significant growth of the Friulian economy between the
mid-1960s and the mid-1980s, supported by earthquake funding, emerged as
potential sources of crisis. At the very least, they limited the economic and
territorial resilience of the area. For example, marketing strategies were
notably delayed, encompassing not only the ability to sell a product but also
the skill of interpreting and anticipating changes in the market. Another typical
feature of industrialisation in Northeast Italy was the family-based structure
and limited size of businesses. However, when global scenarios began to change,
and a broader outlook became necessary, this proved to be a hindrance.
Founder-entrepreneurs were often reluctant to change leadership, managerial
vision was inadequate, and share capital was insufficient, among other factors.
The flow of capital that had poured into Friuli in the
1980s eventually dried up. The industrial financing policy established by earthquake
legislation, particularly Italian Law 828/1982, could not continue into the
1990s. This was due to the erosion of the political framework, both nationally,
which led to the Tangentopoli scandal, and at the regional level. Even
if the capacity to finance such policies had still existed, they would have
been unsustainable due to constraints imposed by European legislation and a
lack of effectiveness; they were increasingly at risk of producing distorting
and welfare-dependent effects.
In the 1990s, the new driving forces behind the
regional economy and, more broadly, that of the wider area known as the
‘Northeast’, which effectively included Friuli, were the ‘industrial
districts’, meaning defined zones in which systems of businesses specialising
in a specific production sector emerged over time due to historical and
cultural factors. The consolidation of these industrial clusters enabled Friuli
to overcome the limitations to development experienced in the 1970s and 1980s
and tackle the challenges that had by then taken on a global dimension. This
culminated in the passing of Regional Law No. 27 in 1999, titled For the
development of industrial districts. This Law identified four industrial
districts (which later increased to seven): the chair-making district, the
agri-food district, the cutlery district and the furniture district. Fourteen
municipalities, classified as “disaster-stricken” and “severely damaged”
immediately after the May 1976 earthquake, formed part of the first three districts.
Furthermore, the collapse in construction-sector
employment in the 1980s, due to the gradual decline in reconstruction work
(-37% in the Province of Udine between 1981 and 1991), was balanced by minimal
industrial employment decline (-2%), and almost symmetrical growth in the
services sector. With more people now working in services than in industry, it
was clear that Friuli was heading into the new millennium and the introduction
of the Euro with a society centred around a service-based economy.