In almost four years in government, Italy’s renewed stability has been a key asset for Giorgia Meloni, also encouraging the European adaptation of the italian-style immigrants. However, the backlash from the referendum defeat, a real own goal, has opened a glaring rift that runs through both the end of the current legislature and the prospects for the next. There is debate over the political exhaustion of her government, forced to navigate the narrow path of budgetary statistics and under the threat of what the Financial Times has termed a “coming energy crisis” triggered by the blockade of the strait of Hormuz.
At the referendum polls, the left-wing broad coalition “discovered” that it could compete with the centre-right, but no poll shows any substantial changes in the balance of power. The scenario of a “deadlock”, or a narrow majority for one of the two sides, appears a real possibility. In fact, for Italy, this would be a return to “normality”, in which, as had been the rule for decades, the impulses of national politics find an objective brake in external European constraints and the colossal public debt.
The strengths and limitations of Italian political “transformism”
Giuliano Ferrara even displays optimism, urging us not to fixate on the idea of stability as a value in itself. Meanwhile, he notes that Rome currently enjoys greater political stability than Paris, London, Berlin, and Madrid. For decades, there has been debate in Italy over which European electoral system to emulate, only to discover that it is the Europeans who have become “Italianised”. Here, moreover, political transformism acts as a “barrier against adventurism”, and even a government headed by Elly Schlein, the leader of the Italian Democratic Party, would find “reformist and mainstream compromises”. The “crisis of the Romanian Empire”, he concludes, will arrive on schedule, but for now it can wait [Il Foglio, May 14th].
The argument is effective, but the least one can say is that its account of the Italian situation appears sugar-coated. The history of Italian political opportunism is a history of adjustments and adaptations—sometimes sudden and in certain cases even remarkable—as much as it is of delays, weaknesses, and outright political crises. This imbalance has come at a cost to Rome on more than one occasion. It is true, however, that in times of electoral uprising, political instability and fluctuations are the norm across the Old Continent, to the extent that, with due caution and specific considerations, the Italian situation continues to be viewed as a possible “model”.
A lesson in euro-solubility
As the political crisis deepens, London is studying the Roman case with interest. Patrick Jenkins, deputy editor of the Financial Times, observes how the “rapid Italianisation” of British politics is alarming investors in government bonds; he recalls that, in 2018, when Salvini was deputy prime minister in the first Conte government—which we describe as the government of adventurers and amateurs—Italian bond spreads and yields soared. Today, however, in Italy, Meloni and Giancarlo Giorgetti are maintaining “fiscal discipline” and the risk premium on 10-year bonds is more than one percentage point lower than that of the UK [May 15th].
Adrian Wooldridge, an international economics columnist for Bloomberg, sees Meloni as “the Anti-Starmer”—seeing, as a prime minister who “rules a system that is famously unstable and held it together”. She is the opposite of her British counterpart, who, despite having a huge majority, has caused “unnecessary turbulence and fragmentation”. For Wooldridge, Meloni remains a model of the “pragmatic right”, capable of engaging with Europe and mindful of budgetary constraints, so much so that, even if she were to lose the next election, her “influence” would remain, as an “alternative model” for populists compared to Trump’s “rupture” [May 14th].
Italy, the vanguard of instability, long viewed with condescension or derision as Europe’s laboratory of political and financial instability, now appears as a case study, pointing to a possible way out—perhaps through a back door. And not only across the Channel. Michaela Wiegel, Paris correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, believes that Jordan Bardella, president of Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National and frontrunner in the 2027 presidential race, is “clearly imitating the strategy of Italy’s Giorgia Meloni” who “had sent reassuring signals to Europe prior to her election in 2022” [May 17th]. Interviewed by the FAZ, Bardella confirms the importance of Franco-German relations, which he describes as “the foundation of Europe”, and distances himself from the AfD, noting that a significant section of the German far-right party is calling for an exit from the EU: “That is not our position”, he said.
In the name of a tougher line on immigration, Bardella then proposes a three-way alliance between France, Germany, and Italy [May 15th]. The FAZ itself highlights “the distance” that remains between the CDU’s “European political vision” and the French “populist” sight, which, moreover, insists on the priority of national law over European law. This proposal would clash head on with the EU treaties, but we note that it was also championed by Meloni’s party right up until the moment she entered Palazzo Chigi.
The tough stance on immigration, on the other hand, now appears to be accepted as the norm, and is in fact considered one of the necessary components in the political arsenal of every government leader in Europe, who is simultaneously called upon to discreetly manage the entry of new immigrant workers, increasingly indispensable in the freezing climate of Europe’s demographic winter. In any case, it is confirmed that the Italian model is seen as an example of pragmatic adaptation to the European framework by sovereigns and populist forces once they have entered government: euro-soluble, indeed.
A cycle of electoral uprisings
However, in the political crisis of ‘Atlantic’ decline, the question of the pluralist contradiction of a general line arises in new terms for the ruling class. Walter Russell Mead speaks of a “new era of disruptive populism”, the onset of which he traces back to Brexit Today. In London, the two-party system has collapsed into a “multi-party” contest, in which “centrist parties are no longer necessarily the largest or the most powerful”. But, he adds, “Britain is not alone”; in France and Germany, centrist parties feel the ground shifting beneath their feet. Anti-immigration and security issues dominate the political landscape. And even when, as in the United States and Britain, “populist votes lead to chaotic destruction”, voters do not seem inclined to return to the “technocratic competence” guaranteed by traditional parties.
From a foreign policy perspective, Mead notes, this is “bad news”. The world is “a dangerous place” and requires cooperation between the leaders of democratic powers, but this is “hard to do when politicians everywhere must play aggressively to the populist gallery in order to survive” [The Wall Street Journal, May 12th]. The assimilation of economic political forms—a process that is always hazardous and never definitively resolved—involves effort, friction, and takes time, clashing with the accelerated pace of imperialist reality.
National political fluctuations and European rearmament
We have written in the past about how the crisis of the international order has forced Europe to “change horses in midstream” with regard to its military-political centralisation, which is still “too little, too late”. Mario Draghi, upon receiving the Charlemagne Prize, urged Europe to adapt to a world that has “become harder, more fragmented, and more mercantilist”. The changed relationship with the United States—what we have termed the split in Atlantic relations—represents for Draghi “the central external fact of our time” and necessitates moving towards greater autonomy in the field of security. Draghi highlights the “important changes” already underway and emphasises in particular how Europe has already “made its most significant strategic choice in decades: to invest in its own defence”. The task now, however, is to transform the current “patchwork” of initiatives “into clear and binding commitments”. The precedent of the euro, and thus the strategic leap of monetary union, is cited as the model to follow. Through “pragmatic federalism”, the task would be to “create that same dynamic again in energy, technology, and defence” [May 14th].
The rearmament of European imperialism, we note, is underway on the economic, political, and military fronts, but its timings affected by the fluctuations of national political cycles. Not only for European sovereignty, but for any force aspiring to govern, euro-solubility now depends on adherence to continental rearmament.
PACIFIST ILLUSIONS
“German churches are preparing for war”, writes the FAZ. In an “internal working paper”, the German Bishops’ Conference and the Evangelical Church address “with unprecedented frankness” the tasks that pastoral care might be called upon to perform in the event of “scenarios of military threat and violent conflicts that could directly affect Germany”. The aim is to “strengthen organisational resilience” and includes the potential management of the wounded and fallen, assistance for prisoners of war, and psychological support for traumatised soldiers upon their return. The working plan was drawn up following discussions with the German Armed Forces. Around the same time, Franz-Josef Overbeck, the Catholic bishop of Essen and bishop of the Military Ordinariate of Germany, spoke in favour of a return to compulsory conscription. The head of military chaplains believes that the desired expansion of the Bundeswehr cannot be achieved through voluntary service alone, and that “the situation is too dangerous to wait indefinitely”.
The Church’s position on war has always been complex and multifaceted, and it is impossible to reduce it to a single, unambiguous stance. This reflects, moreover, the dialectic between the Roman centre and local churches, and the relationship of the various episcopates with their respective States. At a time of a crisis in the world order and a struggle between continental powers, the task of reconciling conflicting demands entails the need to manage growing pressures. As a multipolar Church, the Vatican works to promote unity over imperialist division. But as a Euro-Vatican party, it accompanies the process of political and military centralisation of European imperialism, presented as serving to preserve the multilateral order. In Asia and South America, China’s rise and Washington’s relative decline are in turn reflected in the specific positions of the respective episcopates.
“Do not call rearmament ‘defence’ if it increases tensions and insecurity”, stated Pope Robert Prevost at La Sapienza University in Rome. A few months earlier, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, president of the Episcopal Conference of Italy (CEI) had urged people not to confuse “defence and rearmament: the EU would need effective unified coordination, a prerequisite for a European army”.
Over 2000 years of history—from the time of Augustine and the fall of the Roman Empire to the industrial-scale massacres of the 20th century, the century of imperialism—the Church has, depending on the circumstances, espoused every form of neutralism, pacifism, and open interventionism. The only possible peace is the revolutionary peace of proletarian internationalism.