Italy, facing a decisive start to the year
The beginning of the Italian political year will be of enormous importance for the course of a legislature that should end, in principle, in February-March 2023, although it can do so much earlier. We will explain why.
Firstly, the current coalition government, born just a year ago, is facing the consequences of the coronavirus epidemic. In this respect, it gives the impression that it has known how to get the situation back on track: if at the end of February it was "point zero" of the epidemic on the European continent, now it barely reaches 1,000 positive cases a day compared to neighbouring Spain, which far exceeds this figure. Furthermore, the drop in GDP in the second half of the year (updated, incidentally, a few days ago), although very sharp, has been less than that of Spain and even France: 12.8 percent is closer to Germany than to the second and fourth economies of the euro area. On the other hand, the current Executive carried out a very successful negotiation of European funds: 209 billion compared to Spain's 140 billion, when the Italians only have 23-24 percent more population (the country has 60 million, while Spain has around 46 million). However, this is not enough to bring about a very complicated autumn, with a significant increase in the number of unemployed, very high levels of debt and, consequently, growing social discontent in a country which in March 2018, in the last general elections, made clear its commitment to populism (represented by the Five Star Movement) and ultra-nationalism (whose main leader is the former deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the Lega).
In this connection, the vision Italians may have of a need for change or not will be verified on the occasion of the elections called to choose the government of up to seven regions: Liguria, Valle d'Aosta and Veneto in the north; Tuscany and the Marche in the centre of the country; and Campania and Puglia in the south. The centre-right is practically assured of winning the first three, and very possibly both in the Marche and in Apulia, while the centre-left is almost certain to win only in Tuscany, the historic stronghold of the Democratic Party (PD) and the home of the former Prime Minister and current leader of Italia Viva (Matteo Renzi).
The most important thing about these elections is that we could find the umpteenth anomaly of Italian politics: on the one hand, a central government formed by three parties in the orbit of the centre-left (PD, Italia Viva and LeU) and a fourth formation (the Five Star Movement) of which we no longer know what it is (it has had no leader since January 22, has no direction and its main feature is to block all kinds of political action because it only sees the phenomenon of corruption behind it). Furthermore, by the end of this month the centre-right could be governing no less than 16 and 17 regions, which would mean controlling 80-85 percent of the national territory. It should not be forgotten that the country has a tremendously unequal population distribution: whereas southern Umbria, governed by the centre-right since October 2019, has scarcely reached two million inhabitants, the ever-powerful Lombardy ( well recovered after suffering the worst effects of the coronavirus epidemic) is home to 16 million Italians, that is, between 26 and 27 percent of the country's total.
If this situation were to occur (and it seems quite possible), the problem would shift to the Palazzo del Quirinale, the residence of the President of the Republic (whose tenant, as is well known, is none other than Sergio Mattarella). Let us remember that it is the head of state who, according to the Italian Constitution, has the power to call elections (and even more so if he wants them to be held in advance) and to order the formation of a government, so it should be this veteran Sicilian politician and jurist who should take a decision in this regard: either to let the legislature go ahead because there is still a "maggioranza di governo" at the national level, or to give way to a new majority, made up of three parties all belonging to the centre-right, in which the person who holds the majority of the votes for the new president of the Council of Ministers is none other than the controversial Matteo Salvini, known for his position against the current construction of Europe. But Mattarella, a man of enormous personal prestige in his country due to his impeccable record (brother of a Mafia victim, minister and deputy prime minister in the nineties, and also a former member of the judiciary, all without the slightest shadow of corruption), and likewise a person of more than evident pragmatism who, furthermore, has less than a year and a half left at the head of the State, the most logical thing would be, if the centre-right once again sweeps these elections, to demand that the current government coalition approve the General State Budget (PGE) for 2021 and thereafter call early elections.
Evidence of this is that for some months the political forces that make up the current government coalition have been designing a new electoral law, the fifth in less than three decades (Mattarellum in 1993, Porcellum in 2005, Italicum in 2014, Rosatellum bis in 2017, and now this one). An electoral law in which the main debate is on the majority system (Matteo Renzi's favourite and a few other groups) and the proportional system (defended by Salvini and Meloni), and in which the "referendum" called for September 20 to approve or not the "taglio" of the national parliament will also have its influence, leading to the lower house having 400 members (instead of the current 630) and the upper house having only 200 (compared to the 315 established by the Constitution).
A "referendum", by the way, which is another anomaly in the Italian political system. Because the reduction in the number of parliamentarians was agreed by the Five Star Movement and the Lega when they both signed the so-called "government contract" (May 2018), a "contract" that was blown up when Salvini, in August 2019, tried to bring down the government. Now it is the center-left Democratic Party (PD), which never liked the famous "taglio", which has to defend the "yes" together with the Five Star Movement, since both are the main parties of the current government coalition. In principle this "yes" should go ahead because both the Lega and Fratelli d'Italia also defend a favourable position, but it should really be the Italians who decide whether it should go ahead, as a minimum of 270.000 inhabitants is required to allocate a seat, there would be regions that would be over-represented (in the case of Lombardy, Veneto or Emilia-Romagna) compared to a southern Italy that has been largely depopulated for decades and could be seen with a much smaller number of parliaments compared to the current composition of the two chambers.
As we can see, the horizon for Europe's third economy is extremely complicated and we do not know how far the consequences of the recession created by the coronavirus will reach. Salvini, as expected, is doing the rest of the work on the occasion of these elections because he knows this is his last chance to become prime minister, and will do everything possible to conclude a victorious cycle for the centre-right that began in October 2017, when it took control of the region of Sicily. Meanwhile, the European Union is more than concerned because the last person it wants to see at the head of this "founding country" is precisely the controversial leader of the Lega, despite having proved to be a truly chameleon-like politician (he was first in the Communist youth), He was then a strong supporter of Umberto Bossi's so-called "Padania" and is now a champion of "Italy for the Italians", so it would not be surprising if, when he became a "premier" he was more European than Alcide De Gasperi himself). The outcome to all this, in just a few weeks.
Pablo Martín de Santa Olalla Saludes is a senior researcher at the "Civismo" Foundation and author of the book "Italia, 2013-2018. De la esperanza al caos" (Madrid, Liber Factory, 2018).