Will Italian populism save Europe?
PARIS — Italy’s recent election campaign was a wasted opportunity to debate the country’s relationship with Europe. The result of the vote is likely to push the issue to the top of the agenda.
For the first time in Italy’s history, nearly every party mentioned the European Union in its electoral program. But while the parties presented a wide variety of options — ranging from the creation of a “United States of Europe” to holding a referendum on the country’s membership in the eurozone — the public debate remained superficial and misinformed. As a result, Europe never truly became part of the national conversation.
That’s set to change. On March 4, more than half of the country’s voters cast their ballots for Euroskeptic parties. Strong performances by the anti-establishment 5Star Movement — the largest vote-winner — and the far-right League are sure to spark a deep, fundamental debate about what kind of Europe Italy wants to pursue.
Indeed, given the key role the 5Star Movement is likely to play in forming Italy’s new government, its members will have to urgently decide where they believe Italy should stand in Europe. Should the country join nationalists like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of the Poland’s Law and Justice party? Or should they stand with Europhiles like French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel?
The 5Star Movement’s major battles appear more aligned with EU political priorities than those pursued by other Italian mainstream parties.
Signs suggest that Italy may actually do neither, but rather set its own course of action within Europe — one that leads to an entirely new understanding of what EU citizens want, starting from a discussion on universal basic income and the best ways to reform the eurozone.
Despite the undisputable, massive electoral victory of anti-establishment parties, it would be a mistake to read in this election yet another straight rejection of Europe by its citizens.
Euroskepticism doesn’t mean the same thing in Italy as it does elsewhere. Over the last 20 years, prime ministers on from the right (Silvio Berlusconi) and the left (Matteo Renzi) have used Europe as a scapegoat for everything that is wrong in the country.
This EU-bashing fueled the rise of Euroskepticism, lending momentum to the 5Stars, who today sit in the European Parliament with Nigel Farage’s UKIP. But while hostility toward Brussels certainly didn’t hurt the 5Stars, the party’s real appeal didn’t depend on that part of its manifesto. The 5Stars won because of the way it appealed — through digital media and plain-spoken rhetoric — to ordinary citizens, drawing them into the political process.
In other words, the 5Stars have none of the baggage of the old-fashioned mainstream parties. Indeed, when it comes to their prowess at community organizing, the party has more in common with Macron’s La Republique En Marche party — which at the time of its creation drew inspiration from the 5Stars — than with Renzi’s Democratic Party.
Even before the votes were counted, the 5Stars had already begun to take the edge off its once strident Euroskepticism. In the run-up to the election, the party’s leader Luigi Di Maio toned down the anti-EU rhetoric and set aside the party’s call for a referendum on membership of the euro.
Moreover, the 5Star Movement’s major battles appear more aligned with EU political priorities than those pursued by other Italian mainstream parties. It fights corruption via whistle-blowers’ protection, advocates for more transparency in government and better environment protection, and it has been an advocate for a reduction of Italy’s record-high public debt.
What if the 5Stars were able to bring the same freshness and irreverence to European politics that they have brought to Italian politics? The party might paradoxically have more to offer the ongoing European debates than the Democratic Party or the center-right coalition that includes the League and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.
To be sure, to do so the party would have to make some crucial changes: It would have to set aside its odd anti-science agenda and render its governance structure more transparent and accountable. But by coming into the political mainstream, the 5Stars have the potential to rejuvenate the slow-moving European political discourse by putting citizens’ problems at the center of the debate.
The party is well positioned to transform the role Italy plays within Europe. It could also instill a new respect — or at least acceptance — of the EU among Italian citizens, notably those who have been the least informed and most disengaged and who have been unable to benefit from the country’s membership in the bloc.
By playing an engaged role in reforming the EU, the 5Stars could transform the way the bloc is perceived in Italy, from an inevitable fate decided by the few to a voluntary, shared project shaped by the many.
Alberto Alemanno is Jean Monnet Professor of European Union Law, HEC Paris and author of “Lobbying for Change: Find Your Voice to Create a Better Society” (London: Iconbooks, 2017).
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