President inflames Italian fires
Italy’s political establishment was initially hailed for its ‘‘courage and responsibility’’ in blocking the populists from taking power, but Europe’s elites are now trembling as fresh elections threaten to become a referendum on popular sovereignty versus the European Union.
French President Emmanuel Macron, the EU’s favourite strongman, praised Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella for guaranteeing ‘‘institutional and democratic stability’’ after Mattarella blocked the formation of a Eurosceptic government. But the sense of relief felt at the EU headquarters in Brussels faded as it became apparent that the Italian political crisis had not been extinguished but inflamed.
By stopping the populist Five Star Movement and the Right-wing League forming a government, Mattarella – who, unlike Macron, is not directly elected – threw petrol on the blaze.
Rejecting critics of the euro and the single currency rules that require unpopular austerity measures, Mattarella then imposed his own candidate as prime minister. Carlo Cottarelli could be a cartoon caricature of the technocrats that populists and many voters hate: a former International Monetary Fund official known as ‘‘Mr Scissors’’ for his championing of painful cuts to public spending.
By obstructing Five Star and the League, Italy’s establishment – notorious for the sort of sclerotic and corrupt rule personified by Silvio Berlusconi – has reinforced a deadly message. Italian voters have been told: whoever you vote for, and whether you like it or not, the policies of eurozone austerity will win.
Comments by Jean-Claude Juncker,
the European Commission president, will haunt the debate. In 2015, after the election of anti-austerity populists in Greece, he said: ‘‘There can be no democratic choice against the European treaties. One cannot exit the euro without leaving the EU.’’
It is hardly surprising that League leader Matteo Salvini has come out fighting, saying: ‘‘The elections will not be political but instead a real and true referendum between who wants Italy to be a free country and who wants it to be servile and enslaved.’’
The prospect of such a choice terrifies the EU and political establishments across Europe. Polling by Italy’s Istituto Cattaneo this week found that an electoral alliance between Five Star and the League would result in a landslide.
Can the euro and the EU survive? Should institutions that cannot bend to the popular will survive anyway? That is the question facing the EU. After Brexit and Italy, the clamour for change could be unstoppable. – The Times