Arrivederci, Il Bel Paese

Introduced to Italy by Italian language text books adorned with drawings of sun-kissed beaches, snow-capped mountains and rolling green hills, foreigners are not surprisingly ready to believe it is indeed "il bel paese".

If all they do thereafter is visit Tuscany, or Umbria, they are unlikely to have their dreams impaired. But if they venture further afield, they will find a country of sharp contrasts. Italy's cities may be as incomparably beautiful as ever, but its countryside, its shores and mountains have been devastated in the past half-century.

Nowadays, a drive through this once-lovely country all too often takes you past endless advertising hoardings and laybys piled with litter, along coastlines blighted beyond saving by unlicensed construction, into highlands that are being systematically robbed of their wildlife by unauthorised development.

A law forced through parliament this week will help to speed up the process of desecration. The prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has already passed measures allowing people who have broken the planning laws to legalise their offences by paying a fine to the authorities. The legislation takes the principle a bold step further by applying it to protected areas. Opposition critics claim the true aim of the bill was to protect Mr Berlusconi himself from the possible consequences of alterations made to his luxurious seaside property on Sardinia.

The prime minister's villa stands on the coast and should therefore be covered by a raft of laws designed to protect the shoreline. But earlier this year it acquired a reproduction Greek amphitheatre and a boat entrance, tunnelled into the coastline, that will allow arriving visitors to tie up underground and step into a lift that will whisk them to the heart of the billionaire politician's holiday retreat. Among Mr Berlusconi's guests on Sardinia last summer was Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair.

The bill passed this week enables anyone who carried out unauthorised building work in an environmentally sensitive area before the end of September to wipe clean the slate by handing over between €3,000 (£2,105) and €50,000. There is a condition. The offender must convince the authorities of the compatibility of the building to be amnestied with its surrounding landscape.

In places, that could lead to amnesties being refused. But in Italy, as in other countries, builders and developers make it their job to cultivate good relations with local officials, so refusals are likely to prove the exception rather than the rule.

One ray of light in the law is that it speeds up procedures for demolishing the most outrageous planning violations. In Italy, entire tourism complexes and housing estates get put up without permission from anyone.

The bill, nevertheless, prompted an uproar after it was tabled in the upper house, the senate. The government resorted to a confidence vote to get it through - a sign that it was unsure of obtaining sufficient backing from within the ranks of the majority. Had the government lost the vote, it would have been forced to resign, so coalition senators were effectively obliged to turn up and back it.

Exactly the same procedure was applied this week in the lower house, the chamber of deputies. The bill was approved by 316 votes to 225 after a heated debate in which Green MPs waved pictures of the prime minister with a slogan that said "Legalise Lies Too".

What now remains to be seen is whether, among those applying for a planning amnesty, will be one S Berlusconi, occasional resident of Porto Rotondo on Sardinia. He has until January 31 to take advantage of the law.