The trouble with Italy's rightists
English original of article published in Italian by La Stampa on July 26th
Is Giorgia Meloni “fit” to lead Italy? That is in effect the question asked by those in the international media who are alarmed at the neo-fascist origins of the party, Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), that this very smart 45-year-old leads. However, twenty-one years ago, when The Economist declared Meloni’s ally, Silvio Berlusconi, as “unfit” we were not judging his political views but rather his huge conflict of interest and his attitudes to the rule of law and organised crime. Today, the questions surrounding Meloni are completely different. She is not “unfit” in the Berlusconi manner. But is she what Italians should want as their prime minister?
In a way, that mode of thinking may sound paradoxical. In 2001 Berlusconi led the same three-party alliance as Meloni does today, so how can it be “unfit” when led by someone seemingly close to the centre of the political spectrum and yet “fit” when led by someone further to the right? Partly, the answer is that these labels are problematic. But also the issues in the 2022 general election will be very different to those of 2001.
Labels pose a particular problem these days, especially when trying to describe Italian politics to international audiences. Routinely, the three-party alliance of Fratelli d’Italia, Lega and Forza Italia are labelled as “centre-right”. Yet the two largest parties in that trio, Fratelli and Lega, are also usually labelled as “far-right” or “extreme right”. And to foreign audiences it seems strange to consider Berlusconi, a man famed for his liking for dictators and for his social conservatism, as a centrist.
What is however especially strange is that anyone, foreign or Italian, should be surprised by the state of the opinion polls or indeed the political parties. Following more than a decade of governments led either by technocrats or by the left (in which category we can, for this purpose, include Giuseppe Conte, even though for a year his government included Lega), an instinct to swing to the right is pretty natural, as in any democracy. And that is what the polls have been showing for several years now.
The real question, to my mind, is what a right-wing government would be like in office. Its two largest components declare themselves to be “sovereigntists” and nationalists, so we can be sure they will be that. But what will that actually mean?
On one thing we can be totally clear: a Meloni-led right-wing government would do all that it can to prevent asylum-seekers and other migrants from landing in Italy, and would insist on tight controls on legal immigration too. We can also be fairly clear that it will be socially very conservative, for both Meloni and Matteo Salvini have been prominent opponents of same-sex marriage, of anti-homophobia laws and of abortion.
The question here is whether this is really what a majority of Italians actually wants. Be that as it may, this does not make the government “unfit”.
Where that accusation could bear greater weight, as was outlined in the New York Times, lies in Fratelli d’Italia’s links with far-right groups that use and even espouse violence in pursuit of some of these same anti-migrant, socially conservative goals. It is analogous to Donald Trump’s ties to the “Proud Boys” and other militant entities, some of whom took part in his attempted insurrection on January 6th 2021.
That is why it is important that Meloni disavows and condemns these groups at every opportunity, and that if she gets to Palazzo Chigi her government really does deploy the rule of law against them. This will be the ultimate test of the reality or otherwise of the “neo-fascist” label, for beyond institutional origins it is this complicity with violence that is the underlying fear.
Everyone also knows that all three of the parties in the right-wing alliance have been supporters of President Putin. In that light, Meloni’s strong support for Ukraine has been important and notable. We all know why Meloni and Salvini liked Putin in the past: for his money, of course, but also for his socially conservative, supposedly Christian values. We can hope that the evidence of his Christianity shown by Russian war crimes may have changed their views permanently.
The big mystery with the right-wing alliance lies, however, in economics. That, of course, is what worries international investors and the European Commission most immediately.
For several years, I have tried to discern a coherent economic philosophy in Lega and have failed to find one, and the same now applies to Fratelli d’Italia. We can all hang our hopes on the moderation, sobriety and seriousness of individuals such as Giancarlo Giorgetti, but then he is contradicted by remaining anti-euro forces and, most especially, by elements keen to defend vested interests against competition.
With the PNRR less than halfway implemented, no one really thinks a Meloni-led government will want deliberately to put such massive future flows of EU public investment funds in jeopardy. The auditing and accountability system for those funds that has been built by the Draghi government also looks strong. But the question which needs to be answered is whether a Meloni government might put that money in jeopardy purely by virtue of its lack of economic coherence.
Already, we have seen the Draghi government’s Competition Law, which is required by the European Commission, held up and distorted by the protection of small interest groups by the right. Competition policy is therefore an entirely predictable arena for conflict between a new right-wing government and the European Commission’s targets and rules. But there could be others, if an array of different politicians in the economic ministries or parliamentary committees are allowed to play their own games over the budget, public debt or regulatory issues.
So if I were an Italian, watching this election campaign over the next two months, I would be asking myself one question, and Meloni another. The question I would ask myself is whether I want the social conservatism on offer. The question I would ask Meloni, repeatedly, is what, in detail, would her government’s economic policy actually consist of, beyond the usual abstractions of sovereignty and nationalism, and who would form her economic team? At a time of inflation, an energy crisis and with a huge programme of EU-funded public investment under way, it is surely reasonable to expect proper answers.
Thank you for this nuanced report on what this impending election is about.
Will the Italian Press - press Meloni on these questions? And I would like to see you
do an interview with the candidates!
No one forced you to read my pieces, nor were you made to pay for them. So please feel free not to do so in future. Arrivederci or rather, addio