Pan-European approach to risk eludes managers.(up front)

The lights stayed on when Europe's risk managers assembled in Rome in early October. However, had they met a week earlier, the opening of this year's Federation of European Risk Management Associations (FERMA) Forum would have been plunged into darkness. The latest and most serious of this summer's series of power blackouts and restrictions hit the city and most of the country the previous Sunday.

Recent energy supply problems have underlined the importance of risk management to Italian companies and its culture is firmly embedded in its multinationals. However, as Foru