Marco Bassani on The Italian Crisis

A Conversation  with Prof. Marco Bassani of the University of Milan.

TJF:  Prof. Bassani, over the weekend Italian voters decisively rejected a set of “reforms" proposed by PM Renzi.  It is hard for Americans to understand the significance of the vote, particularly since very few of us follow Italian politics.  To begin with, could you please describe Renzi’s proposals.

 MB:  Quite frankly I believe that even most Italians had only a vague idea of the proposed constitutional reforms. They voted from their political guts and clearly rejected  Matteo Renzi’s Constitution. 

The package was a very complex transformation that revolved around the change from a bicameral system to a loosely unicameral one (the Senate did not disappear, but was transformed into a less political assembly).  The Italian parliamentary system is in fact a quasi-perfect bicameralism, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies are both elected by the people and have exactly the same competences. 

The reformers did not have the courage to suppress the Senate: They envisioned a very complicated second assembly reduced in number, and composed of regional representatives and mayors.  The confidence vote for the Government would be the prerogative only of the Chamber of Deputies.  

There were several other features of the reform, from the diminished role of the Regions to the restructuring of the referendum process, from the annihilation of the Provinces (administrative units, similar to the American counties) to that of CNEL, a quite useless corporative body with representatives of the employers and employees that is a very minor legacy of fascism. At any rate, the average voter would have had to spend about 60 hours just to understand what all this was about.        

The real matter of the reform was, however, a law that is not part of the Constitution, that is the electoral law called Italicum (these laws usually have Latin nicknames in Italian politics). The old  party system (1948-1992) was predicated on the cold war division, and it was based on a very bizarre struggle. It was a political fight between one party, the Christian Democrats, that could not be overthrown from power, and another one, the Communist party, that could not really get power.      The end of the cold war and the various scandals destroyed (or rather forced a general reorganization) of all major parties, and  electoral laws were passed with the intent to build a two party political system. This proved to be impossible: the Italian electorate seems to have a clear vocation for proportional representation.   

The political system is now made of three or four distinct political groups, one of which the Five Star Movement (M5S) is probably equal to Renzi’s Democratic Party (more than 30%) but will never agree to form a coalition government with any other party. The chances of having a political stalemate of the sort that Spain had for one year, or Belgium for almost two, are great.  

TJF  Any political agenda has both an exoteric and an esoteric side.  Publicly, how did Renzi present his plan, and what do you think his real objectives were?

MB: The whole referendum must be seen as a power struggle between Renzi and the old guard of his own party, the (post)communist executives that were never really ousted by the young mayor of Florence.  Renzi was Prime Minister for about one thousand days.  While he never even tried to tackle Italy’s economic problems, i.e., national debt, amazing public expenditure (56% of GDP), and the heaviest fiscal burden on earth, he bet everything on this referendum.  He depicted it as a way to reduce the heavy cost of politics, to shorten the legislative process, to simplify the working of government.  It was rather a reform that was intended to give much more power to the Prime Minister.

TJF   To some extent, when he first put forward his reforms, Renzi was counting on his own popularity pulling them through.  What happened to his charisma?  Does it have anything to do with the migrant crisis which hits Italy worse than most countries?  Are the stories true of the Italian government taking over hotels and unused houses against the wishes of the owners?

MB Some months ago he felt so confident that he started this reform battle against the whole political spectrum.  To be honest he was able to get twice almost 60% of the votes in Parliament, as the process of constitutional amendment requires.  But he broke a non-aggression pact with Silvio Berlusconi when he decided to go ahead and elect the Italian President, Sergio Mattarella, without consulting the old leader.  I still believe that it is quite remarkable that he got 40% of the votes playing this match alone against the rest of the world.    

The migration crisis is clearly the main source of his loss of popularity. Immigration policy is a total mess. While the economic recession is the worst since unification in 1861, anti-immigrant sentiment is at an all-time high. The government sends the Navy to rescue anyone leaving from North Africa to Sicily by boat, then brings the migrants into camps. While only 2% eventually (after 19 months of red tape) get the status of refugee, no one is ever expelled. Italy went from a physiological 2% of foreign born population to almost 10% in less than 25 years. Meanwhile to say that property rights are not respected by government officials trying to accommodate the needs of hundreds of thousands of immigrants would be an understatement.     

TJF  Last year, while we were spending a month in Rome, we went to Florence for a few days and visited a jewelry shop near the Duomo.  The proprietress urged me to leave Rome and spend more time in Florence, and I made some quip about doing the opposite of what Renzi, the former mayor of Florence,  had done.  She proceeded to lecture me, as elderly Italian ladies like to do, and expressed considerable contempt for the Italian Obama.  A good friend of hers had served with Renzi on the city council and pronounced him the stupidest politician he had ever met—a pretty large claim.  What do you think?  To me, an American who has tried to keep up with Italian affairs, the lady in Florence seemed absolutely correct.
MB Renzi found some dignity in defeat last night, when he resigned and conceded somewhat gracefully. He is a  shrewd politician, that has his best moments in the fight.  Some years ago, at 39, Matteo Renzi was the youngest European Prime Minister. He is called Teo by his friends, but he has no real friends, only political connections.  He posed his entire life as the youngster opposing a party apparatus made by obsolete caryatids. 

In a country that is on the verge of a demographic crisis, and aging rapidly toward an astounding ratio of one to one (that is, for everyone in the workforce there will be one pensioner), Matteo seemed to embody the optimism of youth. For many years he was called “Rottamatore” (the Scrapper) as his single political agenda was to get rid of the old guard of party leaders. Renzi is a sort of Jack Weinberg, the guy who invented the slogan of the Sixties: “Don't trust anyone over 30.” Problem is, as time goes by, now he is over 40. 

I would not consider him stupid, that is the I.Q. is not his main problem – my guess is that he would be somewhere between Obama and HRC but he is in bed with the oldest politician there is.  Behind the image of the young non apparatus guy who became Prime minister there lurks the oldest - in every sense of the word--European politician, the former President Giorgio Napolitano, his real mentor.  Born in 1925, a major figure of the Italian Communist party, Napolitano in 1956 publicly defended the Soviet invasion of Hungary.  Napolitano and Renzi are a very odd couple, but the mayor of Florence the politician who put the last nail in the coffin of the Italian communist elite – owes everything to the old communist leader. 

TJF  Obviously, Renzi has to resign.  What are the immediate consequences?  In particular, how will his departure affect the Banking crisis? It seems a bit ironic that the Monte dei Paschi Bank of Siena, once praised by Ezra Pound as being the first honest bank, is going under with a burden of scandal and corruption.

MB Renzi will resign. In a few weeks there will be a new Prime Minister and elections will probably follow in the spring. There are at least 8 banks that should simply fail, but will cost the taxpayers an immense amount of money. This vote will probably simplify the issue. Renzi, in fact, never confronted the banking system's spectacular failure as he was too busy trying to convince the people that the Italian chaos was actually caused by these two chambers having the exact same competences.  From 1472 to the era of Ezra Pound, the banks were not managed directly by politicians, in the past 70 years Monte dei Paschi of Siena was the private bank of the Communist Party. 

TJF  Finally, many observers are comparing this election with the BREXIT vote in Britain.  Although the EU was not really on the ballot, does this rejection of Renzi “and all his works” have implications for Italian membership in the EU?

MB There are two crises that most likely will trigger the downfall of the E U. The national debt and the unstoppable invasion of non-European migrants. Italy has 25% of the grand total of the euro zone debt and is the absolute assembly center of the North African influx.  The European ultimate crisis will start in Italy, and during an election. However it will not be this one–we are still in the realm of politics as usual –but most probably the next general election, in which the ultra-statist 5 star movement will win. M5S, born out of anti-establishment feelings, is now advocating even more government spending, from minimum income guarantees to bank and firm subsidies all across the board. If they actually win it would be the final blow for what is left of the Italian economy.