07.07.2016
Brexit shock waves
The UK referendum vote has added to the uncertainty in Italy, notes Toby Abse
Italian politics is in a turbulent state, both because of the triumphs of the Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S-Five Star Movement) in last month’s local elections in Rome and Turin and because of the effects of Brexit. Whilst the post-election meeting of the leadership of Matteo Renzi’s Partito Democratico (PD) to discuss its election defeats was delayed for a few days in the immediate aftermath of Brexit, the longer-term impact of the UK vote is rather more significant.
First, it seems to have further exposed the weakness of Italy’s undercapitalised banking sector. The shares of all Italian banks have fallen in value since June 23 and the already troubled Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) has been most affected; it looks as if the European Commission will relax its rules on state intervention in order to prevent a collapse of MPS and a more general crisis of the Italian banking sector - something which could trigger a wider crisis in the euro zone.
In political terms the boomerang effect of Cameron’s referendum has led to fears on the part of Renzi and his followers in the PD, and his centrist coalition allies outside it (Angelino Alfano’s Nuovo Centrodestra - NCD - and Denis Verdini’s Alleanza Liberalpopolare-Autonomie), that the Italian referendum on Renzi’s constitutional reforms1 scheduled for October could be seized upon as an opportunity for a wide range of Renzi’s opponents and disenchanted elements of the electorate - regardless of their degree of interest in the constitution itself - to express a negative protest vote and topple the prime minister.
Beppe Grillo’s M5S has increased its popularity in the wake of its victories in June and, according to opinion polls, would currently beat the PD in a run-off ballot under Italy’s new electoral law - popularly known as the Italicum - by a margin of almost 10%. These figures contrast markedly with a comparable poll in February 2016, in which the PD was narrowly ahead of M5S by 51% to 49%. Even leaving aside this hypothetical second-round choice between two alternatives, M5S is now ahead of the PD for the first time in two years - by 32.3% to 30.2%. This is a reverse of the situation in April and, perhaps more significantly, completely overturns the last result in an actual nationwide election - the 2014 European Union election, in which the PD very decisively beat M5S by 40.8% to 21.2%. This was taken by the PD as evidence that the M5S electoral surge in the February 2013 general election would never be repeated.
The divisions amongst the traditional centre-right and far-right parties has meant that M5S has become the principal alternative to the PD - Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia is now only scoring 11.5%,2 less than the combined vote of its far-right allies (Matteo Salvini’s Lega Nord at 11.8% plus Giorgia Meloni’s neo-fascist Fratelli d’Italia at 2.7%).
However, despite the close links between M5S and Ukip in the European parliament, M5S has had to tone down its anti-European rhetoric to some extent, since, although only 33% of Italians now have faith in the European Union - far fewer than a decade ago - Brexit has not been favourably received by Italians in general. Only 12% believe Brexit had had positive effects on Italy and only 18% saw it as having positive effects on the United Kingdom itself. In the event of a hypothetical referendum on Italian membership of the European Union 66% would vote to remain and 26% to leave, the others being undecided or unwilling to give an answer.
It is worth pointing out that, whilst 59% of Lega voters favour exit, only 36% of M5S supporters take a similar stance - a figure which, although considerably higher than the national average, indicates that not all of them are impressed by Grillo’s close alliance with former Ukip leader Nigel Farage in the way Lega voters seem to endorse Salvini’s alliance with Marine Le Pen (the most prominent advocate of a ‘Frexit’). Around 32% of the total sample favoured abandoning the euro and returning to the lira - a position that was endorsed by 54% amongst Lega supporters, but only 41% of M5S voters, despite an exit from the euro, as opposed to the EU itself, being publicly stated official M5S policy. Amongst Forza Italia voters there was a marked hostility to the euro, with 43% favouring a return to the lira,3 even if only 27% supported an Italian exit from the EU.
Interestingly there is no substantial ‘Lexit’ feeling in Italy - amongst voters for Sinistra Ecologia e Libertà (SEL) and similar groupings only 13% wanted to abandon the euro and only 8% the EU.4 There is less faith in the EU amongst SEL voters than those voting for the PD and the NCD, but such doubts are not translated into active Europhobia of the type found in the UK. Similarly the negative judgement of the EU amongst the unemployed, manual workers, the self-employed and pensioners - self-evidently on the increase after the 2007-08 world financial crisis and the 2011 crisis of the euro zone that precipitated the hard-line austerity of the Monti government - does not seem to directly transmute into anti-EU or pro-lira sentiment of a kind analogous to that found amongst similar groups in the UK, or at any rate not on the same scale5.
M5S problems
M5S hopes that Renzi will be defeated in the October referendum on his constitutional reform and then resign, plunging the coalition and the country into political chaos and precipitating an early general election, in which a demoralised and divided PD6 would be beaten by M5S in the run-off ballot. However, this scenario - in which M5S forms a government under Luigi Maio in the aftermath of a general election precipitated by Renzi’s resignation - rather depends on the conduct of the newly elected M5S mayors in the months between now and October.
Whilst Chiara Appendino in Turin seems to have quickly gathered a team of assessori (mayoral cabinet members) around her that incorporates figures with some credibility amongst groups such as the LGBT community or environmentalists, Virginia Raggi in Rome is not proving as successful. Not only has she made little progress in appointing her cabinet - which she is meant to present within days - but her first appointments gave rise to considerable controversy both within the ranks of M5S and with the wider public.
In the case of the former M5S city councillor, Daniele Frongia, whom she attempted to appoint as her capo di gabinetto (roughly equivalent to a chief executive officer), the problem seems to have been one of a conflict of interests that many argued fell under the Severino law - the very law that precipitated Berlusconi’s expulsion from the Senate (in broad terms the appointment of somebody who has previously had a partisan political role as a councillor to a supposedly neutral administrative post linked to the very same city council requires a longer time interval). Whilst others in M5S have made it clear that such an appointment is unacceptable, as the party cannot be seen to breaching legality, particularly in the capital city, it is quite likely that a compromise will be reached, under which Frongia will have the more openly political role of deputy mayor.
The other appointment proved even more controversial - Raffaele Marra will not only not be Raggi’s vice-capo di gabinetto, but the Roman direttorio of M5S will not tolerate his appointment to any particularly important post. Marra has enjoyed a very close association with leading neo-fascists - both with the notorious former mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, during his time at the ministry of agriculture and with a former neo-fascist president of the Lazio region, Renata Polverini, whose administration collapsed amidst financial scandals. Above all, he was also associated with Franco Panzironi, currently under investigation for involvement in the criminal association known as Mafia Capitale.
Raggi is now on very bad terms with two powerful women in the Roman branch of M5S - the deputy, Roberta Lombardi, and the senator, Paola Taverna - and they have managed to get Grillo himself to summon Raggi to a meeting and point out to her face to face that, as far as Marra is concerned, “We cannot permit ourselves to have somebody like this in our team”.7
If Raggi continues in this vein, her claim to represent a new, clean start in Roman municipal politics will be exposed as the absurdity it is and M5S’s bid for national power may yet end in grotesque failure.
Notes
1. The main change is the abolition of the directly elected Senate and its replacement by an indirectly elected and much smaller and less powerful chamber, principally composed of representatives of regional governments and mayors. Despite Renzi’s rhetoric about the savings from no longer paying vast senatorial salaries and having a more efficient and streamlined body, the main purpose of the reform is to concentrate almost all power in the Chamber of Deputies. This is all designed to favour the PD itself.
2. Silvio Berlusconi is still in hospital after major open-heart surgery and, as he approaches his 80th birthday, is no longer in a position to impose his will on his own increasingly faction-ridden and quarrelsome party, let alone the sort of broader centre-right coalition he was able to lead to electoral victories in 1994, 2001 and 2008.
3. Although Berlusconi has, with a certain amount of justification, blamed external forces - particularly Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy - for his toppling as Italian prime minister in November 2011, he has not advocated exit from the euro in any consistent way.
4. This is even less than amongst PD voters, of whom 14% want to leave the euro and 10% the EU.
5. La Repubblica (July 1 2016) does not give any exact figures to support its generalisations about social groups.
6. The PD’s left wing is unenthusiastic about the constitutional reform and certain influential individual former leaders of the PCI/PDS/DS/PD, such as former premier Massimo D’Alema, are openly opposed to it. Others appear to be trying to bargain with Renzi, making support for the abolition of the existing Senate dependent on some modifications in the electoral law, the Italicum. SEL - like the centre-right and far-right parties, Forza Italia, the Lega and FdI, as well as M5S - is opposed to it.
7. See La Repubblica July 4 2016.