Interpretation to correct. The Italian election results roused a mass of comment in Europe and beyond last week. What is interesting to us, are the repercussions on the way the EU works. Emphasis has been laid on the negative consequences - the country is blocked, a coherent parliamentary majority does not exist, a stable government seems impossible, populism (an ambivalent term that means a little what one wants it to) has won the day. The result is that scepticism has swelled with regard to the management of the eurozone.
Right now, these roving reporters have left Rome to follow the news elsewhere and the media are giving priority to other events. Meanwhile, in Italy, in-depth analyses have been made, different aspects that were previously overlooked have been taken into consideration, and the outlook has partly evolved. The following interpretation has made progress - a large part of the Italian people rejected a political class, the most part of which deserved this treatment through its selfishness, its abuse, its inability and its refusal to renovate. I am not referring to the reactions of the newspapers linked to one or other political tendency, but primarily to the Corriere della Sera - the most illustrious and widely read of the Italian daily newspapers.
Its editorialist, Ernesto Galli della Loggia, has rejected the term populist to define the political force that has emerged - in other words, the Five Star Movement (M5S) of Beppe Grillo, a professional comedian who is very popular. The editorialist saw, in the vote of a large part of the Italians, three reasons for no longer trusting the political class: (1) members of parliament had carefully kept their - often abusive - privileges, while sacrifices were demanded of the whole population (the Parliament had subscribed to the austerity measures introduced by the Monti government … but not to the austerity measures that concerned the parliament); (2) they despised Mr Grillo's movement, accusing him of not having any true political objective, although the rejection of a whole political class is obviously one of them, and a major one at that; (3) they believed they were established in their role forever because no new personality had had the chance to emerge for 25 years.
Galli della Loggia concluded: “A large part of public opinion that no longer trusted the political parties made the only choice that it could - inventing a new party from scratch and giving their trust to a sort of Shakespearian jester, who is free to say what others don't dare”.
A new category of parliamentarian? The situation is neither clear nor simple, however, given that:
- Beppe Grillo is not part of the new parliament as he is not eligible
- the elected members of his M5S movement (108 deputes, 54 senators) in fact have a high level of autonomy from their leader because a detailed programme does not exist.
It should also be taken into consideration that the elected members of this movement are for the most part young people, that women are widely represented, and that the percentage of graduates or people in employment is revealing. A kind of rejection of “professional and irremovable politicians” could be spoken about.
The elected members of the M5S will therefore have a considerable degree of autonomy. It has already been noted that they are not considered as strictly bound by the positions of their leader who can't take part in the debates - let alone vote. What is more, he's worried about it. When Mr Grillo announces that his group will vote for any project that is in line with his programme, that doesn't mean a lot - because the first vote will be on the approval of a new government and each group will have to approve or reject it.
Positive aspects of a new Italian parliament. (1) Women will finally make up more than 30% of elected representatives, which for Italy is a considerable leap forward; among the newly elected members of parliament, 42% are women; (2) the average age is going to decrease considerably, and will send those politicians packing who have had a seat in parliament for over 40 years; (3) several traditional political parties are committed to supporting radical reforms. The programme of the Centre-Left party led by Mr Bersani provides for the number of parliamentarians to be reduced by a half, for the pay-allowance of the parliamentarians to be fixed at the level of a city mayor, for the funding of political parties to undergo in-depth reform, for conflicts of interest to be regulated, for anti-corruption arrangements to be radically strengthened. These are all positive measures because in Italy the cost of politics has to be drastically reduced.
From a European point of view, there are certainly positive aspects and this column will return to them.
(FR/transl.fl)