European and global politicians should get utilized to the thought that the election run is governed by its rights. That among the electoral promises and declarations cast at crowd rallies is to approach with large distance. After a hot run period, the time of thawing is coming. There is simply a phase of "realising" programming assumptions. The collision with post-election reality may be peculiarly strong in the case of environments that scope for power for the first time or after a long period of opposition. 1 of the European governments that best recalls this rule is the government of Giorgia Meloni. Rome – contrary to the hysteria of any of the influential left-liberal environments in the West and against the more or little hidden hopes of the right hand – did not resurrect in Europe (contra-) revolutionary fire. This is peculiarly well seen in an episode of Italian diplomacy. The abroad policy of Meloni's government is proving pragmatic and conservative. At the same time highly powerfully embedded in typical Italian realities.
A revolution that had no right to happen
The economy, political parties and the European Union – is the Bermuda triangle of Italian politics, which in the past marked the disaster of many governments. They are besides the 3 main factors intertwining and deciding on the global position of the Republic. That's them.to the top extent, they decide that Italy neither plays in the top global political league present nor is it the origin of a possible "conservative counter-revolution" in Europe. They are alternatively like a boxer who fights in the lower master class despite his advanced weight.
Italy is in a hard economical situation. The years of large Italian economical device is long gone. The times erstwhile advanced production opportunities, industry, automotive, plan were driven by Italian brands, belong to the past. The structural problems of the Italian economy – public debt exceeding 140% of GDP, budget deficit, ageing infrastructure, youth unemployment – deepened during the pandemic. Today, it is hard to say that Italia is simply a country of many economical perspectives.
Here, a small more attention should be paid to the erstwhile decades of the Italian economy. Italy is an interesting case of a large European economy (3rd in Europe, 8th in the world), which, after decades of growth, has become a dead end. In the post-war past of the Italian economy, increasing appetites and pursuits of the richer West intertwin with attempts to tame an expanded strategy of power (partialitorase) and imposing discipline on public finances (vincolo esterno). In addition, the European Union and the common currency have become a key origin in these for any time.
Italian economical miracle
In the 1950s and 1960s. Italy begins an awesome and effective economical pursuit of France, Germany and Benelux. The distance is advanced due to the fact that the GDP per capita in Italy is about 15-25% lower than in another EEC countries. The Italian economy is peculiarly strong in the years 1950-1963, called the Italian economical miracle – miracolo economico italiano. The yearly growth rate of gross national product is 6-7%. Cities of the better developed and industrial North attract cheaper labour from the mediocre South. Italians besides migrate from village to town. Italian companies prove to be highly competitive with companies in another EEC countries. Italy's industrial expansion is beginning to rise legitimate concerns about another Community countries. inexpensive Italian products find request in Western Europe, expanding exports from the Apenin peninsula.
According to any economists, the sources of the Italian economical miracle were shallow adequate that they had to end after a period of good economical prosperity and catching up with more developed countries. Jumping expansion was to be mainly due to inexpensive labour costs, low pay, not a real advantage in technologies, manufacture and science. Moreover, despite many efforts, the gap between the better developed northern part of Italy and the mediocre South has never been buried. The fact is that serious problems begin with the decision by Banca d’Italia to rise interest rates in the 1980s. The Italians start to sink in debt, and global financial institutions and the EU will not prove to be their saviors.
That period is the beginning of problems that the Italian authorities cannot cope with today. The Italian central bank wanted to attract abroad capital and keep a unchangeable rate of the Italian lira. Following the signing of the Maastricht Treaty and the establishment of the monetary union, it turned out that the Italian economy had to go dead to its goal. Its most crucial determinant was to keep the currency exchange rate at the European Monetary mechanics Rate, which was 1 of the conditions for joining the euro area. As it turned out, it was crucial that the EU turned a blind eye to another criteria specified as the budget deficit.
Italy fell into a spiral of debt and austerity policy at the minute erstwhile it seemed that Italy had achieved West European prosperity. And that he would keep it for years. In consequence to the 1992 monetary crisis, however, Rome tightens its belt, or alternatively violently pulls the economical brake. It reduces nominal wage increases and weakens the competitiveness of the home economy. The simplification of expenditure, taxation increases and wage frost is simply a policy dictated by the global Monetary Fund and applied by the then transitional, technocratic governments of Amato and Ciampi.
These decisions come at a time erstwhile erosion is being eroded by the foundations of Italian economical recovery – labour productivity, income per individual and investments are beginning to weaken. Public debt and budget deficits are increasing. Stiff economical growth replaces space-based debt handling costs. The Italian GDP per capita, which inactive in 1990 was actually equal to high-developed countries, 30 years later, in 2010, proved 30% lower than their average.Lives in Italy have fallen dramatically. The average yearly net income of Italian households decreased by 15% (1991 – 2016 ) . The share of low-income people increased importantly (from 16.1% in 1991 to 21.4% in 2014).
But before all this happened, the Italian economy joined the euro area. She was treated with severe therapy for which a convenient justification was found – vincolo esterno (external limitation). It was not so much about the external impulse of pro-development, but about the stimulus stabilising the parameters of Italian economics. This stimulus was to be the monetary union. The euro was to be a circumstantial reward in exchange for a unchangeable national currency rate, lower budget deficit, low inflation and a certain level of interest rates.
In Italy, it was considered essential to stay in Rome at the heart of EU integration. It was presented as a essential way to reduce the asymmetry of monetary forces with Germany, and yet as a muzzle that calms and disciplines the Italian strategy of power. The 3 objectives to heal and strengthen Italy have precisely the other effect. The weakened Italian economy remained unopposed against Germany and France. The euro did not become a trampoline for another economical leap, and the Italian elite did not change their habits.
The difficulty of Italy in the EU was that Rome did not build sustainable sources of its economical development. He did not deal with interior improvement gaps, he did not accomplish a technological advantage in any of the fields, and he was reversed in almost all economical indicator. From the junior-partner's economical position, he imposed the conditions of fiscal transformation which exceeded his capabilities. Italian governments were incapable to propose and implement long-term strategies, and their instability provoked abroad observers' distrust. Suffice it to say that in postwar past the Italians had about 70 governments, and the average dimension of the council of ministers was about a year. Only 2 prime ministers managed to hold their office for a full term. In Italy, only death was certain, due to the fact that paying taxes and surviving the government by 1 full word was guaranteed by no one.
This bad strategy of the Italian crisis model was besides confirmed with the outbreak of the global economical crisis in 2007. abroad markets at the time underestimated the credibility of Italian public finances and did not believe in the ability of the political elite there to control the situation. 2 painful blows were felt especially in terms of abroad investment and export. The Italian economy, drowning to the ground in debt, was bound by the euro, which limited opportunities to stimulate the market. The remainder was made by Italian governments – lowering salaries, raising retirement age and suspending any public investment for a certain period. Policy austerites In full swing. Of course, this anti-crisis strategy was drawn with the full fistful of Western financial institutions.
Italian political parties
The brutal fiscal transformation of Italy was very frequently described in the context of the Cuban capitalism after the war organization elites. She was expected to be a shock therapy that would heal public life in the Apenin Peninsula. At least his financial dimension. The Italian political parties were immense machinists who swept the social and economical reality with a dense network of connections, dependence and gratification. The start of a political or authoritative career and its continuation entailed the request to compromise and deal with the interests of the full organization environment. From the North to the South of the country the parties proved to be the most crucial vehicle of career development, presenting positions, enriching themselves or simply carrying out public investments.
This threatened not only the erosion of the values and ideas for which specified a "practical policy" left small space (notabene the space of values was managed by selected heroic prosecutors and judges who had the courage to hazard their lives in the fight against Italian mafias). In specified an environment, corruption flourished, the size of which – over time – had to grow, detonate and turn the Italian organization strategy upside down.
But before this happened, this strategy was immersed in Italian everyday life. The party's mass is well shown by statistic on the 3 largest post-war political groups – Christian Democracy, Socialists and Communists. After the war, more than 2 million members belonged to the communist party, the Chadetic organization cards in the early 1970s had small less, due to the fact that 2 million people, and the socialists were able to gather around 700,000 members in the postwar period. However, in mistake is the 1 who would have thought that the Italians were massively joining the organization solely for ideological reasons. A more crucial fact was that without the organization it was hard to implement any plan.
Government agencies, which have become the place of employment of people with organization legitimacy, frequently had more influence than ministries. Especially as legislative work in the Italian Parliament moved towards a committee adopting many amendments flattering the wishes of the various external force groups. These mini-parliaments have made legislative authorities institutions conducive to the interests of many Members and Senators (and it must be remembered that in Italy both chambers of parliament have the same powers). The major parties of mainstream were broken up into factions (except for communists). They were not teams that played for 1 goal. The preferential voting strategy in the election focused primarily on opponents from their own environment. The place on the list and the fight against “its” was more valuable competition than fighting opponents from another camp.
The Plague of Corruption and Violence
The years of lead, extending from 1969 to the early 1980s, marked Italy with many social shocks. Terrorist attacks, force and brutality have become the experience of many streets of Italian cities. But they did not bring a political revolution. They did not spawn a fresh strategy of power, they did not prioritize a sealed organization system, they did not prove to be the beginning of a fresh era. The state was usually headed by the same politicians who had run their parties for 3 decades. Andreotti, Moro or Fanfani patiently built their own careers as part of organization machinery. The communists continued to be surrounded by a sanitary cordon, and governments frequently changed as in a kaleidoscope, although they were always headed by a chapedic politician. The continuity of the system, incapable to go beyond the model adopted after the war, forced Italy into the rail marazmu.
This strategy didn't start shaking until the early 1980s. In 1981, the chapedice loses its position as Prime Minister for the first time, and in time it besides loses respective million voters. In 1983, Bettino Craxi's socialists took over. As the future shows, they will be the environment that will extinguish the light in the area with the inscription I Republic. Craxi and his regulation from 1983 to 1987 was the beginning of the end of the old system. Craxi's fates well reflect the spirit of the era and the nature of Italian regulation in the late 1980s and 1990s. There is simply a politician who skillfully plays the weakening of chadetia, puts the conditions inactive much stronger than himself, patronises the increasing media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, and yet becomes 1 of the main characters of the large corruption scandal of Tangentopol. Convicted by Italian courts, he dies in exile. However, his "political" will stay valid in many of Berlusconi's political activities.
The bad economical situation and the end of the Cold War created a good ground for changing the current organization arrangement. Divisions of communists and anti-Communists have ceased to be of large importance, anti-communism has become an increasingly weaker currency, and the US's long-standing support for chades has eroded. The mainstream parties were subject to progressive decay, which they were able to usage well regional parties, mainly from Lombardy, Tuscany and Emilia-Romania. The Northern League was formed in 1991 with a combination of these 3 groups. Their imagination of Italy as a federation of 3 autonomous republics (Norths, Center and South) has shaken the heritage risorgimento - Unification of Italy. Her boss Umberto Bossi had a good point for the pains and dangers of the time – ubiquitous corruption, inability of the central institutions of the state, crime. Although time has shown that the League's firing force was limited, the fact that its importance has grown has much to say about the legitimacy crisis of the full Italian organization system.
The increasing strength of the League besides played a key function in discovering the Tangentopoli scandal cards. The affair, which was a nail to the coffin of the old parties, but did not become the beginning of the renewal of the Italian political scene. It started beautiful innocently. In February 1992, 1 of the directors of the Milanan nursing home is charged with accepting a bribe. It's a socialist organization nomination. His case launches an avalanche of further investigations and arrests. For many Italians, it was clear that crime and politics are close in their country. However, the Italian public did not anticipate specified a large scale of this pathological phenomenon. In 1993, Italian investigators demanded the abolition of the immunity of nearly 400 MPs and senators (1/3 of all parliamentarians at the time), with investigations involving almost 1 in 5 councillors in the country. A year later, more than 3,000 detainees of politicians, activists and businessmen active in the Tangentopoly scandal were reported.
The gigantic corruption scandal showed close ties between politicians and mafias. And the second peculiarly digested the confederate part of the Apenin Peninsula. Around 450 criminal organizations, with about 15,000 members, active about 1 million people in their smuggling and criminal activities. The mafia manufacture flourished through arms trafficking with the mediate East and drug smuggling. Many regional governments have fallen into the mob swamp. The most celebrated Italian politicians from Giulio Andreotti were besides enslaved from criminal connections. In the early 1990s. Italy has again proved to be a phenomenon in Europe. This time, not due to economical miracles, but due to the detonation of the corruption scandal, which ripped off the masks of the erstwhile elites.
Invalid establishment
The movement of social opposition took wind into the sails. It was primarily under the influence of national referendums (organised extra-parliamentary) in which the Italians answered questions, among others, about the financing of the organization or preferential voting system. Italian MPs decided to change the election order. Italian political elites chose to leap into the abyss of bipolarity. 75% of the seats were to come from single-mandate districts and 25% from proportional organization lists (since 2017 these proportions have been reversed – 37% from single-mandate districts and 61% proportionally). After the war, the “polarised pluralism” was replaced by bipolar pluralism, which in practice meant alternate governments of the centro-right and centro-left coalition. On the 1 hand, a breakthrough in the 1994 elections was that 70% of MPs and senators were left as parliamentary debutees. On the another hand, as it turned out, this change strengthened the so-far-known demons of Italian politics – dispersal, wobblyness and variability of power, interpartisan transfers, and as a consequence the government's inadequacy. After the 1994 election there were 14 parties in parliament, after 1996 there were 22 of them there.
However, the key effect of these events is that then the environments that remained on the margins of political life entered the state's sphere of government. Berlusconi, covering the government for just 8 months, opened the environment of the North League and the National Alliance (post-fascists, formerly Italian Social Movement, from which Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni comes) a gateway to Italian politics. Berlusconi thus sealed the system, introducing fresh and difficult, as it turned out, partners. Since then, these 3 environments were to form the universe of the Italian right. Both in power and in opposition. From the first dominance of Forza Italia Berlusconi, the Italian right turned to a crucial increase in the Matteo Salvini League, reaching the current primacy in this triumvirat of the Italian Brothers Giorgia Meloni.
Today, politicians from these 3 backgrounds, after many processes of evolution and change, form a ruling coalition. However, already then (which later repeated respective times) voters' verdicts had to face opposition to the widely understood establishment. If the Italian elite thought that the ruling coalition, the Prime Minister or the government crossed red lines, they frequently fell prey to this strategy as a consequence of cabinet intrigues. The President, utilizing his constitutional powers (narrow but crucial especially erstwhile appointing the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers) led the government to resign, citing the coalition majority of technocratic experts instead. Which in practice meant to regulation without a democratic mandate, but with green light from the Italian establishment. This is an highly crucial aspect of the Italian strategy of power. Giorgia Meloni is the politician who has learned the importance of this origin in time.
The Italian Prime Minister was able to persist in the constant opposition to the establishment. Regardless of the nature of her motivation, she patiently waited for her turn. This virtue of patience lacked, for example, Matteo Salvini (supported by Mario Draghi's government, and previously was in a government coalition with the Five-Star Movement), who was tempted to enter the ruling coalition with groups that, from the position of the voters of the Italian right, were unacceptable. In turn, the Italian Brothers in the 2018 election gained 4% of the vote, but already 4 years later they achieved more than 6 times the best result.
In addition to the current Prime Minister's ability to successfully rebrand the political image of her organization (from a post-fascist organization of low popularity in a organization leading the Italian right, but without giving up its roots), the reasons for her success referred to above, the economical degradation of Italy, the fatigue of the current organization elites and the consequent request for fresh quality in Italian politics. It seemed that the answer to the second for many years was the Five-Star Movement built around comedian Beppe Grillo. This anti-systemic organization in 2013 successfully entered the salons of Italian politics, and in the 2018 election it won over 32% of support. However, after respective years of glory from a popular country-wide environment the Movement remained strong only in the South of Italy.
These 2 key problems – the state of the economy and the condition of the ruling elite – were highlighted by Giorgia Meloni in her programme speech in the Italian parliament. She argued that “the figures talk for themselves: Italy has increased by 4 percent in full over the past 20 years, while France and Germany by more than 20 percent; Italy has been 1 of the lowest countries in Europe in terms of growth and employment... It is no coincidence that, in the last decade, there has besides been a series of weak, heterogeneous governments without a clear mandate from citizens incapable to address the structural weaknesses of Italy and its economy and to make the basis for sustainable and sustainable growth."
The abroad Policy of Giorgia Meloni
The triumph of the first female to lead the Italian government would not be so awesome without her strong opposition to EU migration policy. Italy has been struggling with many migrants for years. Actually, since Muammar Gaddafi's overthrow in 2011, the problem has been increasing. In fresh years, the number of migrants has exceeded 100,000 a year, and in evidence 2016 it has been approaching as much as 200 000. The subject of stopping the migration wave was an crucial motive in the campaign. Meloni spared no strong declarations, including threats of sinking boats that smugglers transport migrants.
In retrospect, it can be estimated that many of the run slogans were rhetorical escalations mobilising an election base, but convincing Meloni in a tougher section of the electorate. This was the case, for example, in the case of announcements of the exit from the euro area, critical remarks on president Biden, warm words about Brexit or skepticism towards the EU's NextGenEU programme. Meloni did not make a large turn in Bruskela's politics after taking the helm of government, built a correct relation with Berlin and strengthened her relation with Washington and Kiev. She treated harsh words as run cards that could be reversed after an election victory.
After over a year of power, it is clear that the abroad policy of Giorgia Meloni is simply a mixture of pragmatism and principism. Realism already imposes on her the very framework of the government coalition, which is formed by pro-Russian Salvini and more mainstream, owned by EPP, Forza Italia (orphaned after the death of Putin's friend Silvio Berlusconi). So Meloni has to navigate a ship with 3 engines. Not always operating at the same pace. The cracks were seen, for example, in a different position by the Prime Minister and abroad Minister Antonio Tajani (Forza Italia), who advocated joining Italy to a group of friends of qualified majority, i.e. changes in the EU seeking to depart from the rule of unanimity in EU abroad and safety policy (and more broadly in another areas).
Meloni's pragmatism was primarily based on relations with Ursula von der Layen and Germany. Meloni is well aware that Italy needs immense EU backing for economical recovery after the pandemic. The Italian government wanted to revise the national recovery plan and rise more backing to diversify energy sources and fight advanced billing. Rome is expected to receive over EUR 194 billion of EU grants and loans. The melons have managed to implement 4 tranches of payments, which is already more than half of the allocation. The Italians, who will receive the biggest financial injection from the EU in absolute numbers, were publically praised for the pace of action by the EC President.
Surprising? Perhaps, but given that Prime Minister Meloni's manoeuvre in European policy is limited, it is rather understandable. The Italian Prime Minister rapidly did her homework on another countries in conflict with the Union. beginning besides many fronts at erstwhile (migration, improvement of the stableness and Growth Pact, Green Deal, proposals for treaty changes, etc.) would be completely ineffective. Meloni does not want to frost relations with Brussels, but to warm them where necessary, without giving up vital interests for Italy. That is why, erstwhile approaching the EC Head in the areas of funds for reconstruction or relaxing the position on migration, she is inactive able to argue various elements of the Green Deal. The fact that in the future von der Leyen will most likely gotta search the support of EKR members, to whom the Italian Brothers belong, plays a role. After the June Euro-elections, Italy will most likely become the strongest player in the EKR. The KE chief remembers it takes 2 to tango.
Germany, on the another hand, is not only an crucial economical partner for Italy (Italian-German trade in 2023 amounted to EUR 86.5 billion), but above all a political one. The Italians must effort to convince Berlin and the Union to their thought of mastering migration. Therefore, in November last year, they signed a broader bilateral agreement covering respective strategical areas of cooperation, including consultations of migration ministers. Rome wants more solidarity from another associate States to effectively manage further migratory crisis waves. In addition, to halt migration, Italy is and will request agreements with African (Tunisia) and Balkan (Albania) countries. Meloni, unlike Viktor Orban, is aware that it is not adequate to base buses that will bring illegal migrants to the borders of the nearest EU neighbour for a long word management of the problem of excessive migration.
Black prophecies about Italy's deterioration in the Union, the beginning of a long catalogue of disputed cases with Brussels, and Rome's function as a Putin Trojan horse in Europe proved to be false. Meloni successfully included the Italian Brothers (and her government) in the Atlantic trend of Italian politics. Political, moral and material support for Kiev and the condemnation of Moscow along with the acceptance of EU sanctions make it impossible for anyone in Europe present to accuse the Italian government of geopolitical ambiguity. Meloni did not sign up for the European “friends of peace” camp, as they like to call themselves supporters of peace negotiations with Russia.
"The Atlantic Soyush guarantees our democracies a framework of peace and security, which we besides frequently take for granted: it is Italy's work to make a full contribution because, whether we like it or not, freedom has a price, and this price for the nation is its ability to defend and prove that it is simply a reliable partner within the alliances it belongs to," the Italian Prime Minister said during the inaugural speech in the Italian parliament. Given the fact that the Italian public is mostly opposed to the military aid of Ukraine (also the Italian Brethren electorate), it is hard to fishy Italian prime minister of economicism.
The Prime Minister of the Italian Government besides has the chance to lead a global policy. Italy is leading the G7 group this year, and in view of the tense situation in the mediate East, the war in Ukraine or Mattei's Italian plan for economical support for Africa, Rome will look for ways to item its global importance. Time will show whether Prime Minister Meloni will play this organization effectively. It will be even more important, however, whether it will be able to bring Italy to an economical straight, keep primacy on the Italian right, and in the long word breathe hope for a better future in Italy.
photo: wikipedia.commons
