The Italian Government, before the Justice

In recent days, with the issue of Prime Minister Conte's meeting with the top leadership of the Democratic Party on how to tackle the reconstruction of the country after the devastation generated by the coronavirus, an issue has gone unnoticed that is of the utmost gravity, and where we can find a clear parallel in our country in the sense of the need to be able to explain why certain areas of the country were not isolated at the time to avoid the massive contagion that eventually took place. In the specific case of our Italian neighbours, the Executive presided over by Conte had to explain between last week and this week why it did not isolate specific localities of Lombardy earlier, a question which the president of this region, Attilio Fontana, had to answer for. And, of course, as a matter of fact, while Conte is experiencing his highest level of support among the Italian population, Salvini's Lega, even though it is the formation that leads all the polls, has been left by the wayside, only in the last few months, almost ten points of voting intention. And Fontana should be aware that not only does he belong to Salvini's party, but it was a personal bet by him to replace the previous president, Roberto Maroni, the right-hand man of Umberto Bossi, the founder of the Lega, at the head of the Lombardy government. 

Let's go to the facts themselves, for which it is necessary to go back to the third week of February. On the 20th the first case of death by coronavirus was known, a 78 year old man who lived in Padova, one of the most important cities in the Veneto region. However, by that time it was known that there were other major outbreaks of coronavirus in neighbouring Lombardy, which led the central government to decree the closure of up to ten localities, nine belonging to Lombardy and one to Veneto. However, for reasons that have not yet been duly clarified, two small villages in the area called Alzano and Nembro were not included in this closure. This was incomprehensible, because in a matter of days the number of infections was so high that the director of the hospital in Alzano decided to close the centre. But the truth is that within three hours of this closure the centre had to be reopened because the government of the Lombardy region (i.e. Fontana) ordered it to do so. The consequence for both localities would be devastating: between them, there were about 350 deaths, the equivalent to the number of deaths in a whole year, since the virus was 'walking' around all the localities in the area without any control.

The Italian justice system has already decided to act on this issue in order to clarify the facts and, after questioning Fontana and his health advisor (Gallera), also called on Prime Minister Conte, the Minister of the Interior (Lamorgese) and the Minister of Health (Speranza). The three members of the Executive did so not as defendants, but only so that they could contribute their knowledge of what had happened in this whole affair. Conte, who made a specific statement on 12 June, said he was very calm about this issue, but it seems clear that we are still at a very preliminary stage and that there is still a long way to go before he knows what really went wrong.

The real underlying problem lies in what is laid down in Title V of the Italian Constitution with regard to the competences of the regions and, in particular, in who has the last word on everything: whether the central government, on the one hand, or that of the region, on the other. It should be remembered in this connection that Italy is a semi-decentralised state. Five specific regions (Valle d'Aosta, Trentino-Alto-Adige, Friuli-Venezia-Giulia and the two islands of Sardinia and Sicily) have a special status of autonomy which has long been claimed by Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna and which explains, in part, the emergence of Umberto Bossi's League in 1987. But the other 17 regions have much more limited powers, and, moreover, have no real representation in the legislative power, since the Senate is not really a chamber where the territories are represented, but the second legislative body together with the Lower Chamber, with equal powers and attributions.

The key is thus found in Article 120 of the Italian Constitution, which reads as follows: "The Government may take the place of the bodies of the Regions, Metropolitan Cities, Provinces and Municipalities in the event of failure to comply with international rules and treaties or Community regulations, or in the event of serious danger to public safety and security, or when the preservation of legal or economic unity so requires, and in particular the safeguarding of basic levels of civil and social rights benefits, without regard to the territorial limits of local government bodies". This is precisely what the second Conte government did when it decreed the confinement of Lombardy (along with some areas of Veneto and the cities of Ancona and Pesaro) on March 7 and that of the country as a whole on March 9. But by that time the health debacle had already occurred in both Alzano and Nembro. And although we do not know the content of either Fontana's or Conte's declarations, it is to be assumed that the former will claim that it should have been the government that decreed the isolation of Alzano and Nembro, while Conte will claim that, until the decision was taken to first confine some areas and finally the whole country, competence over health matters was entirely in the hands of the government of the Lombardy region (the aforementioned Fontana).

In reality, all this is only the tip of the iceberg of a simply chilling reality: more than 90,000 cases of contagion in Lombardy alone and already almost 35,000 deaths in the whole country. But it is certain that for the moment the popularity of Conte, a 'premier' who a year ago was no more than a mere creature in the hands of Di Maio and Salvini, not only does not suffer, but has led him to become one of the leaders most appreciated by public opinion. Now, of course, the really difficult part begins for this professor of private law at the University of Florence: once the so-called "health emergency" has been effectively managed, it is now his turn to face the very tough "economic emergency". 

And here it is necessary to remember that Conte does not belong to any of the important political families of the community world, but is only the visible head of a party (the Five Star Movement) that is only falling in the polls while bleeding to death in internal struggles (with the ex-parliamentarian Alessandro di Battista trying to take control of the party). Two years after taking over the presidency of the Council of Ministers, Conte's moment of truth has arrived: to ensure that his country receives sufficient aid to get out of a situation not experienced since the post-war period. And the reality is that for the moment the situation does not look good, with the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Finland and the Baltic countries refusing to mutualise the debt. And in between, as we have already said, this whole thorny issue of who should have prevented the health debacle that has cost so many lives to people in the Lombardy region. This is all that was needed for the already very delicate situation of a key country in the construction of Europe.

Pablo Martín de Santa Olalla Saludes is a senior researcher at the Fundación Civismo and author of the book Italia, 2013-2018. From chaos to hope (Liber Factory, 2018).