© REUTERS/Remo Casilli

It’s a question that is being asked increasingly frequently these days: Does the nationalist-populist Italian government really want to lead the country out of the eurozone? Is that what Matteo Salvini, who is drifting further and further to the right, wants? The head of the Lega was effectively already setting the tone of the government, in his role as interior minister and vice-premier, especially when it comes to migrants. Now, ever since his party won the European elections with 34 percent of the votes, he seems to have effectively slipped into the role of head of government, determining financial policy and relations with the EU as well.

Salvini likes to use “Brussels” as a scapegoat. On the one hand it’s migration—the EU wants to turn Italy into Europe’s home for asylum seekers, he warns his supporters; on the other it’s “austerity policy”—which he says has brought Italy to its knees. Political scientist Vittorio Emanuele Parsi believes that his arguments are not always without merit. “Because it’s true that the EU’s measures have turned crises that could probably have been overcome with other approaches into chronic weaknesses. Salvini, however, is only focusing the spotlight on one part of the problems. He completely ignores the fact that Italy has also contributed to this.”

“Italians First”

Salvini pulls out his motto “Prima gli italiani,” or “Italians first,” like a miracle weapon whenever the opportunity presents itself. That is particularly so now that the European Commission has recommended an excessive deficit procedure against Rome because the government did not abide by the agreements negotiated with Brussels in December 2018. Instead of falling, the national debt has risen further to 134 percent of GDP.

As expected, Salvini was unimpressed by this EU measure. “If the ones in the EU like to do so, they can go on sending letters,” he let Brussels know, arguing he would not let it dissuade him from his plan to introduce the promised flat tax—which would cost another €30 billion—because “it is not only our right, but our duty to reduce the tax burden.”

The suspicion that he might be up to something completely different, namely leaving the EU altogether, so-called Italexit, is not based solely on the harsh words spoken to Brussels, but on another initiative that comes from the Lega. Exactly two days after the European elections, on May 28, the Italian parliament approved a motion obliging the government to introduce “mini bots.”

The Bots Are Coming

The abbreviation “bot” stands for “Buono ordinario del Tesoro” and is a short-term debt instrument with which Italy finances itself, quite legally, on the internal and international markets. However, the situation is quite different with the mini bots already provided for in the coalition agreement. These are to be offered in small denominations, ranging from €5 to €500, have no expiry date, and primarily serve to repay the debts of public administrations to private companies. These amount to €57 billion. Companies would then be able to pay social and tax contributions. Many economists, however, see something else behind it, namely the first step toward a parallel currency.

And they may be right because the current Lega chairman of the budget committee, Claudio Borghi, declared exactly that in a 2017 video. The president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, also seems to suspect plans for a parallel currency, which is why he spoke out against it at a press conference in Vilnius at the beginning of June. Either it is a payment instrument that is equivalent to money, which is forbidden in the monetary union, he said, or it is additional debt.

After the international sensation that the mini bots have caused, Premier Giuseppe Conte and Finance Minister Giovanni Tria, both of whom are independents and not members of either governing party, were eager to calm things down and assure people that these instruments would not be implemented. But where were they when the motion was tabled?

And the question that now arises is how far Salvini really wants to go. “Salvini will pull the brake at the last moment,” predicts economics professor Maurizio Ferrera who recalls an incident last November when a tranche of Italian government bonds remained almost entirely unsold. “There is talk of tens of billions of euros. Not even the Chinese had taken up the offer, even though they are among the most important buyers of our bonds. At that time Salvini was in a clinch with Brussels because of the Italian budget and the markets reacted nervously.” Ferrera believes it is quite possible that both the officials of the Italian National Bank and those of the government office persuaded him to act responsibly at the time.

Italy has to release government bonds on the market almost every month, and the more unstable the government is, and the wilder its economic and financial policy are, the more cautious the big investors become. And so, at the end of the year a deficit of 2.04 percent was agreed with the EU instead of the 2.4 percent initially demanded. The same could happen now. “Salvini must show consideration for his clientele,” Ferrera says. And a large part of them, at least in northern Italy, would not approve of a further increase in risk conditions and certainly not of Italy’s withdrawal from the euro. An opinion that Parsi also shares. “Salvini is a great opportunist,” he says. “He is only interested in one thing, the maintenance of power, not the principles.”

A Flash in the Pan?

But would an Italexit even work—for example, via a referendum, as in the United Kingdom? Parsi says no. “Our constitution prohibits them in the case of international agreements.” So, if Italy, in an extreme case, violated the treaties, it could only be thrown out of the eurozone. This is an option that had already been considered in the case of Greece, but then rejected, not least because German banks in particular would have suffered as a result. Ferrera also believes that while the other member states could bail out Greece that is not possible when it comes to Italy, which is also too big to fail. “But beside this, if there were a serious danger of being thrown out, our president, Sergio Mattarella, would intervene, address the nation, and bring the politicians back to their senses, I am sure of that.”

Since Italians know themselves since the economic crisis that they shouldn’t alienate the financial markets, the danger of an Italexit could prove to be a flash in the pan. It is doubtful, however, that there is going to be a more harmonious relationship between Rome and Brussels in the future, especially now that the new EU posts are due to be filled.

Today, three Italians hold top positions: Draghi, Antonio Tajani, the president of the European Parliament, and Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the EU’s Foreign and Security Policy. But that could change drastically now, and Italy risks having to settle for second-rank posts. If it were up to Salvini, he would like to see an Italian as the EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs. But it is doubtful that this wish will come true.

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© REUTERS/Tony Gentile

The two strong men in the Italian government don’t always agree. Whereas the foreign policy of Matteo Salvini, interior minister and leader of the right-wing nationalist Lega, is more oriented towards Russia, that of Luigi Di Maio, economy minister and leader of the populist Five Star Movement, tends to look to China. But one thing is a foregone conclusion for both: they don’t have much time for the European Union, to put it mildly. While they defend themselves against the accusation that they want to lead Italy out of the Eurozone and EU, from their point of view the EU, starting with its austerity policy, must be fundamentally reformed.

Salvini’s first action as interior minister was to close Italian ports to aid organizations’ rescue ships. It was followed by the showdown with Brussels over the Italian budget. The previous center-left government had foreseen a deficit of 0.8 percent for 2019; the new government raised that to 2.4 percent, in order to be able to keep campaign promises – the basic income and pension reform. Both Salvini and Di Maio persisted with their slogan, “Italy first.” After a long power struggle with Brussels, Rome eventually agreed to reduce the deficit from 2.4 to 2.04 percent.

2019 then brought two serious confrontations between Paris and Rome. The first one was about migrants. Salvini and Di Maio charged Paris with hypocrisy, with preaching solidarity but not taking in any refugees itself. Di Maio went a step further and accused France of being the real cause of the migration wave because it had supposedly continued its colonial policies and driven Africa further into poverty. An uproar then erupted a few weeks later when Di Maio, searching for European allies, paid a visit to Christope Chalençon, one of the most radical spokespeople of France’s yellow vests movement. Paris recalled its ambassador from Rome, and it was only thanks to the intervention of Italian President Sergio Matterella that things calmed down after a few days.

Italy also refused to sign the UN Migration Pact and, under pressure from the Five Star Movement, blocked a common approach from the European Union in the Venezuela crisis. Rome did indeed call for new elections in the South American country, but it refused to recognize Juan Guiadó as interim president.

The Big Misunderstanding

In his recently released book, “Ho imparato” (I have learned), the former social democratic premier Enrico Letta reminds readers that in 1989, with a turnout rate of 80 percent, 88 percent of Italians voted to devolve powers to the European Economic Community. Today, according to a Eurobarometer poll, only 44 percent would vote to remain in the EU. “Not even the trauma that the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi represented for the EU,” Letta continues in the book, “can be compared with the current low point.” Berlusconi, he adds, was at least a member of the EPP and, if only reluctantly, stuck to the “European rules of the game … which one cannot say of this governing coalition.”

In reality, Rome and Brussels had already begun to drift apart by the early 1990s. In those days, the corruption scandal “Tangentopoli,” which involved illegal party financing and abuse of powers, swept away all the old parties and paved the way for Silvio Berlusconi to enter the political scene. In his 2014 book “Le ragiono della debolezza italiana” (The Reasons for Italy’s Weakness), the political scientist Emidio Diodato argues that the change began with Italy’s signing of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, as a consequence of which not only foreign policy but, significantly, also domestic policy was shaped by “external restrictions.”

This led Berlusconi’s center-right governments to seek a “national relocation” of competencies, while the center-left governments under former EU Commission President Romani Prodi promoted the “internationalization” or “Europeanization” of the country. Diodato wrote of Prodi: “He did, however, not succeed in transforming the primarily technocratic project, where adhering to European rules had priority, into a political one.” In other words: the Italians supported his plan as long as it promoted economic growth and didn’t demand any “victims.”

Strictly speaking, Italy’s relationship to the EU has always been based on a misunderstanding. “The Italians have always misunderstood Spinelli’s idea of a federal Europe, seeing in the EU a more or less mythical entity that would do everything of which Italy itself was not capable,” explains Ricardo Perissich, former general director of the EU Commission and an important aide to Altiero Spinelli, one of the pioneers of European integration.

So, Italians were for the EU without asking themselves what it actually meant to be a member of the union. Perissich cites the late industrialist, Gianni Agnelli, according to whom 80 percent of Italians support the concept of the EU, but 80 percent of what Italians do runs counter to the concept. Embedded in NATO and later in the EU, Italians felt themselves absolved of any responsibility for decades, Perissich believes.

Nevertheless, the politicians of these years were extremely successful at maintaining the country’s status as a middle power in the Mediterranean. Men like De Gasperini and later Emilio Colombo, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Giorgo Napolitano, and Bettino Craxi were perfectly capable of juggling multiple approaches. On the one hand Italy was an ally to Israel, but on the other it had a sympathetic ear for the Arabs. It was a loyal ally to the US, but without losing sight of Russia or China. Some commentators in Italy still believe that the diplomatic networking with Arab countries that took place back then has played a role in Italy being spared from Islamist terror attacks thus far.

As long as the EU guaranteed growth and prosperity, Italy’s citizens were quasi a priori supportive of membership. In the aftermath of the financial and economic crisis, they are today a priori against it—without really concerning themselves too closely with the causes. If one once saw the EU as a lifeline, today the EU has become a scapegoat and must take the rap for everything that goes wrong. This attitude is supported by those in government. When the Morandi Bridge in Genoa collapsed last August, killing 43 people, Salvini had the audacity to claim that the EU’s austerity policy was responsible for the disaster.

The current government also doesn’t spare the German “schoolmaster” from criticism and attacks. But that’s not new, as Perissisch emphasizes: “The German-Italian relationship was always characterized by a certain ambivalence. You might remember what then-prime minister Giulio Andreotti said about German reunification: ‘I love Germany so much that I preferred two of them.’”

New Partners

With its current attitude, is Italy running the risk of losing importance in international terms, also with regard to the new arrangement in the EU after the elections? Salvini and Di Maio repeat, like a mantra, that after the May 26 there will be an entirely different Europe—and to some extent they are right. Yet although the Social Democrats and European People’s Party will almost certainly lose their majority in the European Parliament and therefore become reliant on the Liberals, those “traditional” forces together will not make life easy for the newer, populist and right-wing nationalist groupings in Strasbourg. Moreover, it’s not just Antonio Tajani, the president of the European Parliament, who will be replaced this year; in the Autumn, ECB President Mario Draghi’s term will expire as well. But the departure of two Italians from key positions doesn’t seem to really worry the current government, as the Italian daily Corriere della Sera wrote in early March.

After all, there are other partners. For example, Rome’s policy towards Moscow has always been sympathetic, even if it eventually joined in imposing sanctions on Russia. But the pro-Russian position has never been as aggressively maintained as today. In an interview with the Washington Post, Salvini declared that there are “areas that have always been Russian, in which the Russian culture and Russian tradition are at home and that therefore belong to the Russian Federation.” At the same time, Rome must take into account that relations between Moscow and Washington are rather tense at the moment—and Salvini does not, under any circumstances, want to give up good relations with America.

It’s a balancing act that is threatening to become even more difficult now that Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has signed a memorandum of understanding on the “Belt and Road Initiative” with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The memorandum was primarily supported by the Di Maio-led Economy Ministry. The reaction from Washington was especially harsh: the US would no longer forward sensitive data to Italy, some said. Brussels, too, felt affronted.

Economists and political scientists warn in Italy that Beijing is known to be pursuing political goals with the New Silk Road, and that Italy could become a Trojan horse. The government rejects these accusations. It “describes this agreement as a pure trade agreement, but does not, however, recognize the real goal of the Belt and Road Initiative,” explains Danilo Taino, economic commentator of Corriere della Sera.

In an interview with the weekly L’Espresso, Romani Prodi recently described his country as “Europe’s Achilles heel.” He doesn’t really see the danger in Italy leaving the EU and the Eurozone, but rather in its potential to divide them from the inside. If that were the case, though, Italy would only be the stooge in this “divide and conquer” strategy. It would be Moscow that would be pulling the strings, or Beijing.

The post Europe’s Achilles Heel appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

Artwork © Dominik Herrmann

Italy has found itself in the middle of a vicious election campaign leading up to the March 4 vote. It is more of an election war, really, fought with lies, propaganda, distortion, intolerance, violence, and a torrent of hatred.

A glance at the country’s social media is enough to get a sense that this is not simply a matter of differences of opinion, nor is it about persuading voters. Anyone with a different view is not simply a political opponent―they are an arch enemy, who must be destroyed along with their ideas. In Italy, political confrontation has always oscillated between drama and melodrama. But the punches being swung this time around are increasingly brutal.

The weekly newspaper L’Espresso produced a catalogue of such insults at the end of last year, gathered under the title “Die, You Bastard.” The collection showed that regular social media users are far from the only ones unscrupulously venting their rage. Politicians and media outlets seem to completely underestimate the potential for violence that comes from these tirades of hate.

For example, just before parliament voted on the controversial new electoral law last year, an MP from the Five Star Movement (M5S) wrote to Ettore Rosato, a Social Democrat who helped draft the bill, saying: “Rosato, let’s make a pact: if the constitutional court approves your law, we’ll burn you alive.” Meanwhile, Vittorio Feltri, editor-in-chief of the daily Libero―allied to the populist Northern League―posted on Facebook: “Dying of malaria is not normal. The infection is coming from far away, from black Africa. Stop the intake!”

For its part, a far-left movement dug out a photo of former Prime Minister and leader of the Christian Democrat, Aldo Moro, who was kidnapped by Red Brigades militants on March 16, 1978, and found dead a few weeks later in the trunk of a Renault 4. His kidnappers had taken the photo during his captivity and passed it to the Italian media. The public was shocked, and even today the photo is seen as a dramatic testament to a period of trauma.

Yet that didn’t stop the left-wing extremists from swapping Moro’s face for that of Matteo Salvini, leader of the Northern League―complete with a gag over his mouth. The doctored image was captioned: “I have a dream.” The next day, the Rome-based daily Il Tempo published a similar picture, this time with the image of lower house speaker Laura Boldrini.

In fact, Boldrini seems to have become the object of the most vile and extreme attacks―because she is a woman, because of her pro-refugee stance, and because she is on the left. One activist for the “Us with Salvini” list responded to an alleged rape by an immigrant by asking: “When will this happen to Boldrini and the women of the Social Democratic party?” This was outdone by an even more alarming post featuring an image of a beheaded Boldrini and the words: “This is the end she had to meet in order to appreciate her friends’ customs.”

Throwing Up the Media

The press, of course, have not been left out, and the former leader of the M5S movement, Beppe Grillo, has been particularly vicious. “I’d like to eat you all up and get so full that I can vomit you straight back out again,” he told the press on one occasion.

Grillo’s aggressive and powerful rhetoric is not the only reason that there seem to be no more taboos when it comes to verbal confrontation. But it is undeniably a factor. In 2005, Grillo wrote a blog post announcing the start of his “Parlamento Pulito” (“Clean Up Parliament”) campaign. It targeted 20 MPs who had retained their seats in parliament despite being convicted of crimes. Grillo bought a whole page in the International Herald Tribune to expose the issue. He attracted a lot of attention from abroad, but far less in Italy itself, starting with the media. So he changed his tactics, and organized the first national “V Day” for September 8, 2007. V stands for the expletive vaffanculo, meaning “fuck off.” This time around, Italians and the country’s media were listening.

Political disputes in Italy have always been something of a gladiator fight. But the current confrontation has flagrantly crossed the boundaries of civility so often that Amnesty International Italy has started the campaign “Count to Ten.” “There’s not an hour that goes by in which social media, or traditional media, aren’t reporting on the latest hate-filled statements, and anyone can be the target, whether migrant, woman, Roma, LGBT person, or a member of a religious minority,” the NGO wrote on its website. The campaign features a barometer measuring the hate level in the run up to the election.

It is hard to say whether this project is really achieving its goal of getting people to dial down their tone. But the threat is certainly real—these hate tirades are followed by actions, as the last few weeks have shown. A few days after an 18-year-old was murdered in the city of Macerata and a group of Nigerians came under suspicion, an Italian man embarked on a shooting spree targeting African immigrants. During a visit by Boldrini to a Milan suburb, the right-wing extremist group Casa Pound publicly burned a straw puppet effigy of the lawmaker. Brenda Barnini, mayor of the Tuscan town of Empoli, was sent an envelope containing two bullets, a swastika, and the message: “You prefer niggers to your own countrymen. We will finish you.”

Hugo von Hofmannsthal once wrote: “Words are not in the power of men; men are in the power of words.” At the moment, Italy seems to be in the power of some particularly nasty ones.

The post Words Don’t Come Easy: “Vaffanculo” appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Eric Vidal

Not even Matteo Renzi could have bet that there would be 1.8 million voters taking part in the race to lead the center-left Democratic Party (PD) – and this is a politician often accused of being an arrogant risk-taker.

Lest we forget, the last time Renzi took a gamble it ended in bitter defeat. As prime minister he called a nationwide referendum on December 4 of last year to let voters decide on a series of constitutional changes. Nearly 60 percent slapped down his proposal, and Renzi swiftly resigned, as he had promised to do.

Ahead of the PD poll on April 30, Renzi appeared humbled, indicating he would consider even one million voters taking part a success. So it came as a great surprise when he ended up with more than 70 percent of the vote in the primary, far ahead of Justice Minister Andrea Orlando and Michele Emiliano, the governor of the southern Puglia region. Italian media pointed out that Renzi had received as many as 1.8 votes (on a turnout of 2.8 million) in the 2013 primary vote – which is true enough, but the ex-prime minister and former mayor of Florence had been facing a long and slippery road back to the top. The painful referendum defeat in December exposed deep fault lines within his party. In late February the PD’s left wing, led by Massimo D’Alema and Pierluigi Bersani, split off and formed a new party called the Progressive and Democratic Movement (MDP). That has complicated Renzi’s hopes for a comeback.

A glance at France’s presidential race and fellow centrist Emmanuel Macron could provide an important model for Renzi. The two have similar platforms and aims – after all, Renzi’s motto is “In Cammino,” a direct translation of Macron’s popular “En Marche!” After the PD primary Macron directly congratulated Renzi, tweeting: “Bravo à @matteorenzi “in cammino”/en marche lui aussi. Ensemble, changeons l’Europe avec tous les progressistes,” or “Bravo to Matteo Renzi ‘in cammino/en marche’ as well. Together let us change Europe with all the progressives.”

It didn’t take long for Renzi to tweet back: “@EmmanuelMacron Merci à toi cher Emmanuel! Nous sommes avec toi. Vive la France, vive l’Europe (que nous allons changer ensemble), or “@EmmanuelMacron Thanks to you dear Emmanuel! We are with you. Long live France, long live Europe (which we will change together).”

Renzi’s public support for Macron comes as he prepares his own ambitious campaign for Italy’s elections next February. It is no secret that Renzi would like to form a strong alliance with future President Macron, one that could stand up to Berlin and Brussels’ demands for rigid austerity policies that are widely unpopular in France and Italy. It was just September of last year that Renzi lashed out at the EU and Germany during a speech in New York, accusing Berlin of benefiting from draconian austerity measures that were destroying Europe. Macron, meanwhile, told an audience in Berlin he had registered French voters’ rage toward Europe and would take it into account.

A Dose of Reality

In in the center-left daily la Repubblica, Italian commentator Stefano Folli warned Renzi would do well to avoid the temptation for revenge, particularly because his latest victory still pales in comparison to the December referendum drubbing. Renzi had been brash and impetuous, grossly miscalculating the public mood, says Folli; he might repeat his mistake if he fails to examine the more troubling aspects of the primary poll.

Forty percent of those who cast their ballots were over 65, for example. And while Renzi did gain traction in the south of the country, he sustained big losses in the central “regioni rosse,” or red belt, region, once a stronghold of the communist PCI party until its split in 1991. Meanwhile, Folli points out that France’s socialist candidate Benoît Hamon also scored well in the primary, but his party suffered an historic collapse in the first round of the presidential election.

Hamon’s fate is part of a larger trend sweeping Europe as the traditional big parties witness their support dwindling. Philosopher and politician Massimo Cacciari argued in the weekly news magazine l’Espresso that these parties have forgotten their roots. At their conception, they helped shape the structures of the nation state – a state that developed a social system and facilitated the redistribution of wealth. Big parties were forced to confront each other and compete, and the ability to negotiate and compromise was a key pillar of policy-making. Now, says Cacciari, that pillar is vanishing.

“Today, party leaders declare themselves the direct representatives of the so-called people without having any organization behind them, and without understanding that these convoluted structures are the symptom of our democratic crisis, not the antidote,” he said.

In the liberal daily Corriere della Sera, journalist and politician Antonio Polito argues that the voters who selected Renzi to be PD chairman in April are not the same electorate that voted for him in 2013. Back then he garnered widespread support because of his popularity; the party also believed Renzi was the man to push back Beppe Grillo and his growing Five Star Movement (M5S). Today they know better: the PD is still trailing the M5S in the polls. Polito believes the Democratic Party is increasingly looking to secure the “capo” (mafia boss) votes, a move that strengthens Renzi but weakens the party on a whole.

One of the PD’s leading voices, politician and economist Michele Salvati, is more optimistic about their chances. He said that the high voter turnout in the primary would breathe life into the political landscape. Italian media are hotly debating who Renzi would choose as coalition partner if the PD were to win a majority next February: Could he mend ties with his erstwhile allies, Massimo D’Alema and Luigi Bersani, and join forces with their MDP party? Might Renzi look to the former Mayor of Milan, Giuliano Pisapia, and his Progressive Camp movement? Or is it even possible that he could turn to his archrival, scandal-plagued ex-prime minister and billionaire Silvio Berlusconi, to establish a majority?

Salvati believes all the wrangling over possible outcomes is irrelevant: “In the future, the political struggle will take place between two new camps: those for and against the EU.”

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© REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

It hasn’t exactly been an easy year for Europe. The Brexit vote dealt the EU a shocking blow. Nationalist movements are on the rise. And the refugee crisis has driven deep rifts across the bloc. Now, a looming referendum in Italy is threatening to become the EU’s next big headache – and the outcome is still very much uncertain.

On December 4, Italians will decide whether they are for or against reshaping the country’s constitution, and nerves are on edge. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has dubbed this the mother of all reforms – landmark changes that will chart a new course for Italy in the coming decades. Renzi has argued that constitutional reforms are necessary to make Italy more modern and efficient, more compatible with the EU, and better equipped to face the challenges of a rapidly globalizing world.

The prime minister even staked his own political future on the plebiscite, initially vowing to step down if the country voted “no.” Renzi’s gamble looked like it would pay off earlier this year, when he was still seen as a powerful reformer. But confidence in him has eroded and his position now looks increasingly uncertain. The very referendum that was supposed to stabilize Italian politics might be derailed by political instability, with Renzi’s Democratic Party (PD) deeply divided heading into the vote.

The prime minister’s planned reforms would overhaul Italy’s current bicameral system, where two equally powerful chambers are constantly wrangling for power, making it near impossible to legislate. In the new system, the Chamber of Deputies would be tasked with votes of confidence and passing laws. The Senate, on the other hand, would be slimmed down considerably from 315 to 95 lawmakers. It would be responsible for constitutional amendments and for laws directly affecting Italy’s twenty regions, and it would be made up of regional and city representatives, though whether those representatives should be directly elected or selected by regional parliaments is still a point of contention.

Double the Trouble

Renzi’s troubles started back in April, when fifty lawyers and constitutional experts publicly rejected the prime minister’s plans. It wasn’t the constitutional reforms they were against, though – they were protesting the new, overhauled electoral law that Renzi’s government already pushed through in 2015. Italicum, as the electoral law is called, is a central part of the prime minister’s reform agenda and is meant to stabilize the coalition building process.

Under the law, if a winning party manages to get more than 40 percent of the vote, it automatically receives 55 percent of seats. If no party reaches forty percent, the two biggest parties face off in a runoff. Smaller parties are still represented in parliament as long as they get three percent of the vote, but they no longer wield the power to block governments from forming. Also, national party leaders now handpick the candidates they prefer to serve.

The law went into effect this July despite strong opposition, and is seen very much in tandem with the upcoming constitutional referendum. For many lawmakers, the twin reforms are a blow to democracy because they chip away at important checks and balances put in place after World War II, concentrating too much power in the hands of the prime minister.

Opposition to the constitutional reform has since grown steadily and, as Luciano Fontana, editor of the daily Corriere della Sera, pointed out, it has forged unlikely alliances: well-known lawmakers from Silvio Berlusconi’s fold, members of the former Christian Democrats (DC), representatives from the right-wing Lega Nord, neo-fascist parties like the Italian Social Movement (MSI) and Tricolour Flame, and the socialist Left Ecology Freedom (SEL) party are all in the fray. And then there are the members of the prime minister’s own PD, threatening to split the party down the middle.

Renzi is seen as arrogant and out of touch, driven by a constant need to intervene. Those qualities have rubbed many the wrong way in Rome, and the prime minister has built a healthy list of political enemies during his time in office.

The EU’s Next Problem Child?

The December 4 vote has thus turned into a plebiscite on Renzi rather than on constitutional reforms. The government has scrambled to refocus the discourse, but to little avail. Current polls indicate the vote will come down to the wire. Eugenio Scalfari, co-founder of the daily La Repubblica, believes Renzi’s political career both as head of the PD and of the government will be over if the “no” vote prevails.

Italy’s defense minister, Paolo Gentiloni, is already sounding the alarm over the possible fallout. If the “no” camp wins, he warns, the country would fast become the European Union’s next problem child. And this is coming at a time when Brussels sorely needs a stable and functioning Italy: Both France and Germany will be holding key general elections next year, with National Front leader Marine Le Pen in play for the French presidency and the populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) likely to secure enough votes to be represented in the Bundestag.

Culture minister Dario Franceschini (also of the PD) is urging voters to make Italy a beacon of light in troubled times. In a year when the Dutch (on a very low turnout) rejected an EU association deal with Ukraine, when Britain voted to leave the union, and when Hungary dismissed Europe’s refugee quota system, Franceschini argues that Italy is voting on a referendum that would make it a reliable partner abroad.

When in Doubt, Call Renzi

Italians love to play a leading role on the global stage, so they are particularly sensitive when left out in the cold. After Renzi publicly voiced frustration over the lack of progress at the EU summit in Bratislava, he was excluded from a post-summit powwow with Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, France’s President François Hollande, and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. It was seen as a rebuke in Rome.

So Renzi was all the more pleased to accept Barack Obama’s invitation to a state dinner at the White House. The president made a point of praising Renzi’s reforms and his economic policies – the very same policies that have defied Brussels and Berlin.

Obama’s endorsement didn’t go down well with the “no” camp in Italy. In a talk show, former leftist Prime Minister – and Renzi-foe – Massimo D’Alema called on Washington and Brussels to worry about their own affairs instead of Italian politics. But Italian politicians across the board have championed closer ties with partners abroad in recent years – even if that meant abiding by Brussels’ rules and norms.

In the run-up to the referendum however, says Danilo Taino, Corriere della Sera’s Germany correspondent, that very same perspective has fallen out of favor. The EU is seen as undemocratic and hostile. That, argues Taino, is a danger: Indulging in nationalist and opportunistic arguments means Italy is turning its back on the chance to play a big role in shaping Europe’s future.

The Day After

In Brussels and across Europe, there is growing speculation over the consequences of a “no” vote on December 4. Rumors are brewing of an emergency government and new elections. Whatever the outcome, Renzi has sealed his fate. It’s likely he realized the gravity of his decision after watching David Cameron’s post-Brexit vote demise – and that might be why he has started to backtrack on the question of his resignation in recent weeks. “We’ll continue to govern as we have until now, with the same numbers in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies,” he was quoted as saying.

But if the “no” vote prevails, there will be no going back to the way things were, either for Renzi or the EU.

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The Italian government has put together a contingency plan to address a possible new wave of refugees coming from the South. Among the top priorities: Get the other EU member states on board.

© REUTERS/Italian Navy/Handout via Reuters

The Balkan route is closed, and Italy – until 2015 the EU’s main point of entrance for migrants and refugees taking the highly dangerous sea route across the Mediterranean – fears it will feel the effects.

Since the beginning of the year, 24,000 refugees fled the North African coasts toward Italy, 9600 in March alone. If Austria closes its border with Italy at Brenner and Tarvisio, Italy will face the same situation Greece has found itself in. General Paolo Serra, security adviser to Martin Kobler, the head of the United Nations support mission in Libya, told the Corriere della Sera that a million refugees are ready to make the journey from Libya to Italy. And the daily La Stampa prominently ran a quote by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, warning, “Our country could become a pressure cooker without a release valve.” …

Read more in the Berlin Policy Journal App – May/June 2016 issue.

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Artwork: Dominik Herrmann

Read the complete article in the Berlin Policy Journal App – January/February 2016 issue.

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