How German voting patterns may affect upcoming Italian election campaign
Will Germany’s elections results affect the political equilibrium in Italy, the next European country to head to election in a few months? Italian analysts and media mulled over the issue in the aftermath of the vote held on Sunday, which granted Chancellor Angela Merkel her fourth term in a row.
Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU bloc remained the largest force in the parliament, with 33 percent of the vote. Nonetheless, it suffered its heaviest setback in decades.
An even larger defeat struck the major center-left party, the Social Democrats (SPD), which dropped to 20.5 percent from 25.7 percent in the previous 2013 election. The two forces had been leading the country for the last four years in a so-called grand coalition.
As support for mainstream parties weakened – a trend already noted in other European Union (EU) countries – the anti-immigration and euro-skeptic Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD) party scored the best-ever result for a far-right movement in Germany since World War II. With 12.6 percent of the vote, AfD will enter parliament for the first time as the third-largest force.
Will the same trend repeat itself in Italy, holding parliamentary elections in spring?
“I think the German vote may indeed affect the next campaign in Italy, in terms of more emphasis given on the need to reform the EU,” Federico Niglia, professor of international relations and history at Luiss University in Rome, told the Xinhua News Agency.
“Each political force, of course, will address this issue according to its orientation.”
Moderate, pro-European parties will push harder for reform of some EU policies, in order to better address Italian citizens’ needs and worries, Niglia explained.
Their solution for slowing the populist wave among Italian and European electorates will be to call for “more Europe,” not less, but better functioning.
This position will be most represented by Italy’s center-left Democratic Party (PD), leading the current coalition government.
On the opposite side, euro-skeptic – or simply anti-euro – parties will feel the time has come for a final push against the EU, according to Niglia.
Strongest on this front will be Italy’s populist Five Star Movement – currently the largest opposition force and neckand-neck with PD in the latest opinion polls – and the anti-immigration Northern League party.
The outcome of the German vote on Sunday will possibly affect Italian parties’ strategies in another way, a leading commentator at business daily Il Sole 24 Ore noted on Tuesday.
“A major topic will be the grand coalition for which the two main German parties (CDU/CSU and SPD) have paid a high price, especially the German Social Democrats,” wrote political analyst Lina Palmerini.
This was a “big taboo” in the Italian campaign, according to Il Sole 24 Ore. “The perspective (of a grand coalition) will be dismissed from both the left and the right, putting both sides in trouble.”
It will be difficult for leftist and center-left forces as it was not yet clear what alliance could possibly be formed to govern, Palmerini explained.