Italy's powerful lobbies block country from becoming "normal" Italian health workers demonstrate at Economy Ministry From protest strikes by lawyers and doctors to opponents of freely available WiFi, Italy's new coalition government is coming up against the power of lobbies to obstruct its economic reforms despite holding an overwhelming majority in parliament. Critics argue that the clout of such groups is undermining efforts to make Italy more efficient and investor-friendly, as international organisations such as the OECD are urging. The issue is coming to a head this week as parliament votes on plans to unclog the civil lawsuit system put forward by Annamaria Cancellieri, justice minister, and history suggests she has a fight on her hands. Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi often used immovable vested interests as an excuse for the policy paralysis that characterised his nine years in office. Mario Monti, his sober technocrat successor, ran into the same wall. Now it is the turn of Enrico Letta at the head of his fragile and febrile left-right coalition. "The lawyers, the major lobbies - they block our country from becoming normal," an exasperated Ms Cancellieri fumed at a recent conference. The law would extend the use of mandatory alternative dispute procedures, or mediation, to try to cut a backlog of civil lawsuits running at some 5m cases and increasing by 10 per cent a year. Lawyers went on strike for a week in protest. The slowness of Italy's civil justice system - it takes an average of 1,210 days to resolve a commercial dispute - is often cited as the most potent deterrent to foreign investors. In the World Bank's 2013 global ease of doing business survey, Italy ranked 160th out of 185 countries in terms of enforcing contracts. Italy abounds with lawyers - more than 240,000, compared with 54,000 in similarly sized France. They also make up more than 10 per cent of parliament, including Mr Berlusconi's two personal lawyers, who were heavily engaged in tackling his raft of trials and investigations when not involved in tabling legislation to give him immunity. Their objective this week is to amend Ms Cancellieri's proposed reforms so that legal counsel would be obligatory in mediation procedures and the law would have a four-year time limit. Last year, lawyers succeeded in undermining Mr Monti's attempts to abolish minimum legal fees. He also ran up against the entrenched power of pharmacists who still manage to charge 20 times more than what a packet of headache pills would cost in a UK supermarket. On Monday, it was the turn of doctors, vets and health workers to protest against attempts by successive governments to rein in public spending, although their half-day strike was reported not to have been widely heeded. As the latest OECD economic survey pointed out, Italy needs to move away from increasing taxes to cuts in public spending to keep the budget deficit under control. But public spending has only fallen slightly, much less than in other debt-ridden economies of the eurozone periphery. This reflects the combined powers of the professional services and trade unions as well as regional authorities that manage, for example, the health sector - a lucrative source of income for the Mafia, perhaps the biggest but most obscure lobby of all. The latest spat over reforms also concerns WiFi, where Italy is struggling to catch up with Europe in promoting free public access in hotels, bars, libraries and on public transport. Last month the prime minister happily tweeted the appointment of Francesco Caio, a well known telecoms executive, as "Mr Digital Agenda." Instead, in parliament an amendment has been written into Mr Letta's broad "Decree of Doing" aimed at spurring the recession-hit economy that would make it compulsory, and virtually impractical, for WiFi providers to record the IP (internet protocol) and Mac (media access control) of their customers and use specialised companies to install the equipment to do so. "Free WiFi - Italy stuck in the Middle Ages," headlined Linkiesta, an online news service, blaming "bureaucracy" for the amendment which may yet be changed in parliament. Reports suggested the interior ministry was responsible, jealously guarding its Big Brother powers, some dating to the Fascist era. Others saw the hand of the telecoms lobby. Mr Monti, now leader of a small centrist party supporting Mr Letta, fears the lobbies will undo his successor. just as they obstructed his technocrat administration. Calling parliament a "market stall" where lobbies trade with parties, he commented in a recent television interview: ""Italy is slowly sinking, gently and sometimes cheerfully, because the interests of individual groups prevail over the general good. This has to change," he said.