Italy: Firms shake lockdown using shortcut in coronavirus law The government last week extended non-essential business closures to May 3. But more than 100,000 mainly small- and medium-sized companies have applied to keep going or partially reopen. In principle, a key hurdle for companies to do business should be that they can prove they are part of a supply chain to businesses that are deemed “essential” in a government decree, such as food, energy or pharmaceutical companies. But the government, facing a backlog of applications, has clarified Italy’s lockdown laws to say no companies need to wait for government approval to go ahead. More than 105,000 firms have applied to be considered part of essential supply chains, the interior minister said on Wednesday, in a guideline on its website to clarify the lockdown rules. Of those, just over 2,000 have been turned down and told to suspend their business. More than 38,000 are being investigated and the rest are waiting to be...
Italy: Wine sales sour from virus With Italy's restaurants and bars closed for another month and global trade snuffed out by the coronavirus, the world's top wine producing country is experiencing an existential crisis. Italy's 47.5 million hectoliters edged out France's 42.1 million for last year's global wine production title, although France's 9.8 billion euros ($10.7 billion) in exports beat out Italy's 6.4 billion euros. Making nearly a fifth of all the world's wine and selling more than half of it at home, Italy's two-month lockdown has hit the Mediterranean country's winegrowers especially hard. High end hurting Some of Italy's most prestigious wines are suffering from the worldwide lockdown. For decades, Barolo has focused on "maximum quality," earning a place on the wine lists of some of the world's best restaurants, said Paolo Boffa, president of the Terre del Barolo cooperative. See more: https...