What's Next, Italy? The New Italian Government and Its Call For A "New European Spring&quo

Luigi di Maio (5 Star Movement), Giuseppe Conti (Italian Prime Minister), and Matteo Salvini (League)

On March 4, 2018, 73% of Italians went to the polls. It took three months, however, before they could celebrate the formation of a new government. The elections brought some of the most unexpected results in Italian political history: two new political formations - the Five Star Movement and the League - gained enough support to question the stability of traditional political forces in the country led by Forza Italia and the Democratic Party (DP) and to form a government that can boast more than 50 per cent of total seats in both the Chamber and Senate (Chiaramonte, 2018). It is the first time since 1994 that the DP and FI hold seats in the opposition together.

Formed in 2009 and led by Italian comedian Beppe Grillo, the Five Star Movement (FSM), with its anti-establishment anti-EU rhetoric, built its success on mounting discontent towards both left- and right-wing traditional political forces. As Bordignon & Ceccarini explains “The [FSM] party lies at the junction between different organisational models and conceptions of democracy: it combines an online and offline presence; it has ‘horizontal’ structural elements, but a top-down decision-making process; it is positioned ‘beyond’ ideologies, while its electorate comes from various political families.”

The League party, led by Matteo Salvini was born as The Northern League at the beginning of the 1990s, with its roots in a strong separatist agenda based on the position that the “economically advanced” North should secede from the “poorer South”. The ascent of Matteo Salvini to the leadership of the party in 2013, however, marked a turning point in the Northern League’s regionalist position, and in 2017 the young Milanese politician decided to eliminate “Northern” from its name, and abandon the party’s long held support of secession, allowing him to transform the party into a populist far right-wing force that championed stronger autonomy for all of Italy’s regions. Although joining the centre-right coalition during 2018 election, the League maintained its identification as a populist, anti-establishment and Eurosceptic group.

The election held on March 4 saw the victory of the centre-right coalition, with the League in first place in terms of the number of seats won. However, the centre-right coalition overall did not achieve the percentage needed to form a majority, resulting in a hung parliament. The FSM came second, with the centre-left coalition in last place. Most surprisingly, both the DP and FI suffered significant losses in seats and votes, with no chance to form a government coalition, even in alliance with minor parties. The real winners were the FSM and the League, which after months of negotiation, formed a government. The new government led by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Deputy Prime Ministers Luigi di Maio, and Matteo Salvini, did not wait long to announce its agenda. The new government’s plan to manage migration flows has been very clear since early in the campaign. On September 24, the parliament approved the Salvini Bill, with three main points: reducing the number of boats that reach Italian shores, increasing the number of deportations for those who do not qualify for asylum, and an overall increase in the number of deportation centres (read more on the Salvini Bill). Salvini also announced the closure of Italian ports to boats carrying migrants or refugees, resulting in conflict with other European states and NGOs - see, for example, the cases of Acquarius, Diciotti and Sea Watch 3, which had been blocked from docking for several days (Repubblica).

As for Italy’s relationship with the European Union, the new Deputy Prime Ministers have strong eurosceptic stances, which may jeopardize the strong relationship that Italy has built with major European countries and its status within the Union. In August 2018, Salvini received far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Milan. During the meeting they discussed anti-immigration strategies for the two countries, and engaged in an effort to form a cohesive Eurosceptic group to challenge the centrist coalition represented by French President Emmanuelle Macron (Politico, The Guardian). Just a few weeks later, Salvini met with U.S. President Donald Trump’s former White House chief advisor Steve Bannon. After leaving the White House, Bannon envisioned creating a European right-wing souvranist group - called The Movement, with its headquarters in Brussels - that could disrupt the current European power alliance of Germany and France (The Daily Beast). As tweeted by Mischaël Modrikamen, a Belgian politician and member of The Movement, with an enthusiastic “He is in!”, Salvini jumped at the opportunity to join.

Revealing further distrust towards the European “establishment”, at the beginning of January both Salvini and Di Maio publicly announced their support for the yellow-vest movement in France, which is challenging Macron’s policies (euronews). A few weeks ago Minister Salvini was in Warsaw meeting with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Minister of the Interior - and founder of the Law and Justice (LJ) far right EU party - Joachim Brudziński. Salvini cheered the birth of an Italo-Polish axis to counter the Franco-German axis, as part of what he called a “new European spring”, which would gather right-wing and nationalist parties across Europe together and possibly take over the next European election in May: "There will be a joint action plan that will feed Europe with new blood, new strength, new energy [...]Poland and Italy will be the heroes of this new European spring, this revival of real European values, where there will be less finance, less bureaucracy, more work and more family, and, above all, more security." (Politico)

Salvini’s words may not sound so unrealistic if we consider that Brudziński is currently the head of LJ - t which currently holds 19 seats in the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament - and that Salvini may try to incorporate his Europe of Nations and Freedom group within the ECR to form a cohesive and more solid populist bloc. Some political journalists and policy experts are sceptical about this possibility (D’Alimonte, 2018). However, it would be unwise to overlook the reach of this new sovranist and right-wing tendency which has deeply transformed internal and international politics in Italy and beyond. European elections in May 2019, will be decisive to assess whether European citizens think it is time for a “new European spring”.