The cross : This Italian political crisis, in this period of strong international uncertainties, seems totally incongruous. What is the 5 Star Movement playing by bringing down the government?
Jean-Pierre Darnis: We will have to wait until Wednesday to know the outcome of this crisis because President Sergio Mattarella has asked Mario Draghi to return to Parliament for a vote of confidence. In this crisis, there is a political game. Mario Draghi, the chairman of the council, has had enough of the 5 Star Movement (M5S), which knows that it is electorally diminished. He knows that he will not have the same score as in the 2018 legislative elections.
Because the party is divided. Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio left M5S and joined Mario Draghi’s majority, taking with him a series of senators and deputies more inclined to stay in government in these difficult times. And there are the populists of the movement who want to go back to the opposition and to be more in a denunciation of politics, which corresponds more to their electoral base. In this movement, there is on the one hand a pro-system evolution and on the other a “movementist” base which wants to return to the origins of a class movement and pure protest.
Why did Mario Draghi choose to throw in the towel?
J.-P. D. : Mario Draghi is annoyed by the political game of the M5S which consists of threatening to leave every day, and he sees clearly that his government of national unity is no more. He took note of it. And, in a fairly isolated way, he presented his resignation to the Council of Ministers on Thursday, July 14, without giving the floor to those who could have retained him.
In this context, the role of the president is important. Sergio Mattarella, who probably must have had indications from the majority leaders that they were ready to go on, including those of the Northern League, refused the head of government’s resignation and asked him to stand for a vote of confidence on Wednesday July 20 before Parliament. It will be voted or not, the suspense remains.
Should we expect early elections?
J.-P. D. : Everything will depend on the vote on Wednesday. The M5S deputies who did not vote for the government aid package, should, if they were consistent, not vote for confidence in the government and it would be over. But strict assumptions in Italy often do not apply. Everything is possible, including ubiquitous situations. Thus, the M5S could quite vote for confidence when it voted no in the Senate for the aid package. There could also be a new majority without the M5S and for the latter to support it from the outside without participating, remaining in a form of semi-opposition. In Italian parliamentarism, all scenarios are possible.
But we can also understand that Mario Draghi himself does not really want a wobbly mandate that could wear him out politically. It might be better for him to go out and let others do the job and appear in a few months as an election recourse.
Is the objective therefore for all the parties to position themselves for the next elections?
J.-P. D. : It’s a normal political game, it’s three-cushion billiards for all parties. We are at the end of the legislature, the elections will take place in the spring of 2023, and everyone is positioning themselves for the next move. Mario Draghi may also follow this logic. Coming out now, he may want to appear as a new recourse for a majority coming out of the ballot box.
In the current situation, Matteo Salvini’s Northern League is in government and knows that it would not benefit from leaving it, because it will be overtaken by the nationalist Brothers of Italy party. Within the League, there is a governmental soul, it is very strong on the territory, in particular in Veneto, where we are well aware of the economic stakes of the national recovery plan. Entrepreneurs and local elected officials want this plan, with European funds, to happen and produce effects and they are very attentive to the markets. So the League – even though Salvini may appear to potentially have a breakaway strategy – is stuck, it has to stay.
Can Italy afford this crisis in the current situation?
J.-P. D. : Political crises are endemic in Italy. But paradoxically, this crisis may pose more problems for Europe than for Italy, because Mario Draghi had a reformist action within a triangle Germany-France-Italy. His positions were of great intelligence and efficiency. But at the Italian level, it’s not the end of the world because there can always be other hybrid solutions.