Upheaval in Italy
Italian voters inflicted a crushing defeat on the mainstream parties in the election this week. No party won a clear majority, but anti-eu parties opposed to immigration took more than half the vote. Backing for the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), which has led the government since 2013, fell to 18.7% (from 25.4% in 2013): its leader, Matteo Renzi, has resigned. Forza Italia, the centre-right party of Silvio Berlusconi, took 14% of the vote. The Five Star Movement (5SM) founded by the comedian Beppe Grillo emerged as the single largest group, on 32.6%, having swept much of the south. But the far-right Northern League’s vote share climbed sharply to 17%.
Italy could face months of instability before a government is formed. The 5SM leader, former waiter Luigi Di Maio (who replaced Grillo last year) says he is open to talks with all parties, but the League has declared that it would be unwilling to join any coalition with him.
What the editorials said
This is a watershed moment for Italy, said La Stampa (Turin). For 70 years it has been ruled by parties rooted in Europe’s postwar settlement. But they closed their eyes to public anger at the arrival of 600,000 immigrants and soaring youth unemployment. So now Italy – the first country in Europe where antiestablishment parties have won a majority – has become a “laboratory” for a new kind of politics. That brings dangers, but it’s also an opportunity for social reform. Don’t expect that from 5SM, said The Times. Its policies – a guaranteed monthly income, for example – are all gimmicks. It’s not so much a serious political party as an anti-establishment crowd-pleaser.
Parties like 5SM and the League are also likely to scupper the revival of Italy’s economy, said the FT. Under the outgoing government, it had started to show “the first glimmers of life for years”: fears of a banking crisis receded; real progress was made in tackling the country’s vast debt. What Italy needs now is a period of stability to build on those achievements. As things stand, it just isn’t going to get it.
What the commentators said
Sunday’s seismic election result could spell a dramatic shift in direction for the European Union, said Mark Almond in the Daily Mail. Italians have long been seen as model Europeans: many actually preferred rule by unelected EU bureaucrats to that of their own “corrupt, incompetent” politicians – so the fact that more than half of them voted for Eurosceptic parties represents a crisis for Brussels. Whether it’s Five Star or the League that supplies the next PM, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron will find themselves dealing with a “vocal critic” of the euro and of the way the EU operates. Their plans for further integration have been “stymied”. So much for the idea that Macron’s victory in France saw off the populist revolt, said Marcello Foa in Il Giornale (Milan). When social discontent is so profound, voters won’t be fobbed off with cosmetics.
Italy has eclipsed Brexit as the EU’S biggest headache, said Rafael Behr in The Guardian. As the third largest eurozone economy, it has to be consulted about much-needed structural reforms. How’s that going to work if it lacks a stable government? The “guardians of EU cohesion” had their hopes pinned on a Berlusconi victory, but may now have to do business with the Right’s new leader, the League’s Matteo Salvini, “a dispenser of racially charged vitriol” who wants all immigrants sent home. Brussels has had to stomach the inclusion of a far-right party in Austria’s ruling coalition and is at odds with Poland’s authoritarian government; the last thing it needs is an Italian one that undermines the “tolerant spirit” of its treaties. It’s all part of a “sad and ever clearer” story, said William Hague in The Daily Telegraph. There is now no prime minister or opposition leader in Britain, France, Germany or Italy who belongs to the moderate Left, a state of affairs “not witnessed in peacetime for 100 years”. If Conservatives feel tempted to rejoice at this, they shouldn’t: it leaves voters having to choose between centre-right parties “stagnating in power” or extremists. This is a warning light “on the dashboard of democracy itself”.
What next?
A long process of horsetrading lies ahead, with 5SM and the League both demanding the chance to form a government. Leading figures in PD are pushing for a coalition with 5SM in a bid to keep out the far-right, even though Renzi has damned the idea.
Formal talks on forming a new government will begin next month. If no agreement is reached, President Sergio Mattarella may ask all the parties to join a government of national unity for a limited time under the outgoing PM, Paolo Gentiloni. Another round of elections would then be held later in the year.