The flood after the Meloni government?
History and scenarios between political governments and technical executives. Gianfranco Polillo's analysis
Giorgia Meloni's government could be a sort of last resort. Where the conditional has only a superstitious value. A sort of “après moi le déluge!”, If things don't change. Since 1992, an era that marked the end of the First Republic, Italy has experimented with every possible solution. Since 1994 the center-right, led by Silvio Berlusconi, fell almost immediately under the blows of the militant judiciary. Then the short interregnum of Lamberto Dini. Which was followed by the center left: Prodi, D'Alema 1 and D'Alema 2 and finally the immortal Amato. So Berlusconi again, then Prodi and Berlusconi again. To end with Mario Monti.
Starting from the XVIII legislature, the novelty of Enrico Letta, then Matteo Renzi and Paolo Gentiloni. Until an electorate, more and more exasperated, had decided to try everything for everything, in the plebiscite in favor of the 5 stars. So here is Count I and Count II: the same shape for two antithetical majorities: the first center-right, the second center-left. In the end, to reach that sort of terminus – the Draghi Government – from which the political cycle has restarted with the return to a Prime Minister directly elected by the people.
In these long thirty years there have been only three presidents of the council outside the political fray. Technicians like Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, a life spent in the Bank of Italy. Called to ferry Italy from the 1992 crisis. Or like Mario Monti, a Bocconi man who has been involved several times on the European front. And finally, Mario Draghi. Perhaps the most prestigious, not only for his long career within Italian institutions. But for the undoubted international prestige, built in the fire of that political battle which, in the end, had led to the rescue of the euro. Rescue made possible only thanks to the innovations introduced in the policy of the ECB, of which he was President.
In all cases observed, the repetition of a pattern. Political forces rule the country for a number of years. They bleed it dry with their nefarious policies. To then give his hand to a technician called to put the pieces back together. And, then, start over. Too much pessimism? In 1993 Ciampi was called to regain credibility on international markets, after the devaluation of the lira and the sharp loss of foreign exchange reserves. In that year the only foreign debts on GDP (the net asset position) amounted to 10.9 per cent. With Ciampi, at the end of '94 they were reduced to a more physiological 7.2 per cent.
Mario Monti became Prime Minister for more or less the same reasons. With spreads that had reached 575 basis points, following the sum of errors upon errors. In the previous ten years, since the birth of the euro, with the succession of governments of the right and the left, the Italian economy had slowly slipped towards an abyss. The current account deficit (a measure of a country's degree of competitiveness) had progressively grown to exceed 3 per cent of GDP and with it both public and foreign debt. The first went from 108.9 per cent of GDP in 2001 to 119.7 in 2011. The second grew to 19.1 per cent of the same GDP in the third quarter of 2011.
Mario Draghi was called by Mattarella following a chalking of the old parliamentary majority, led by Giuseppe Conte. The yellow-red one. And the failed attempts to shore up it with palace maneuvers aimed at organizing a gathering patrol – the so-called "willing" – to obtain the longed-for majority. All this, while the country was struggling to emerge from that long agony, which had been the Covid epidemic. And the public debt, in just one year, (2020) grew by 21.2 points of GDP: more than double the results of the entire previous decade (2001/2011).
Episodes, therefore, that speak for themselves. With a public debt that has now reached 150.8 per cent of GDP (2021), there are no further margins. There is no more room for sappers. It is politics that must reassure itself, putting aside objectionable, spiteful, desire for revanche. And so on and so forth, put more. Technicians on the horizon, to be called to the bedside of the patient, frankly, are not seen. And in any case, they had previously intervened after an interval of ten years. When today the armchair of Palazzo Chigi still bears the imprint of Mario Draghi. So it is unthinkable to think of a further suspension of democracy. Which, however, as in the past, would require formulas of "national unity" that are difficult to identify.
This is demonstrated by the progressive fracture that can be glimpsed within Italian society. With Fratelli d'Italia which continues to grow in the polls and the approval for Giorgia Meloni which tends to increase. Episodes that indicate a growing desire for seriousness of the electorate, in the face of the serious unknowns of the moment. While on the left, the crisis of the PD opens the way to every possible adventure, offering the 5 stars the palm of a more general representation, which does not promise anything good. If not further fractures of national unity: both in internal politics and in the international field. With a polarization that will make routine administration itself more difficult.
What outlet can such a situation have? Approaching or moving away from a possible breaking point? The France of 1958 should make us think. Even then, a too fragile and weak parliamentary system could no longer stand the test of facts. He was swept away by a collective awareness, which allowed the passage towards semi-presidentialism and the Fifth Republic. More than a free choice, a state of necessity. To which, now as then, it would be difficult to object.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/il-diluvio-dopo-il-governo-meloni/ on Wed, 09 Nov 2022 12:10:28 +0000.