ITALY IN THE BALANCE BETWEEN EUROPE AND NATIONALISM

by Guido Montani

The Federalist Debate VII N.2, 1994

All of Europe is now watching Italy with apprehension. With the elections of 27th-28th March, the Italians imposed a drastic acceleration on the process of political renewal and state reform, which however may degenerate into a serious crisis of democratic institutions if the political class - both majority and opposition - does not prove up to the task. It is the end of an era, that of the permanent party of government; and the beginning of the death throes of bureaucratic centralism. A new political system and a new form of state are laboriously emerging. But the new and uncertain transitional phase which has opened will be resolved in political tragedy for Italy and for Europe, if the Italian parties take as their objective the reconstruction of a sovereign nation-state, even if radically reformed internally. It will instead become the occasion for profound democratic reform and progress if it leads towards an Italy as a member-state of the European Federation.

Luigi Einaudi warned in 1954, at the time of the ratification of the EDC, that "The existing states are dust without subsance. None of them is capable of bearing the cost of autonomous defence. Only union can make them last". Today, forty years on, one need only observe that without European unification and the American military protectorate, which however is about to end, Italy could not have reached the levels of economic well-being, freedom and justice which make it one of the most prosperous countries in the world.

This heritage of civilisation, built by the people and by the political class who struggled in the European Resistance, must not fall into decay. The participation in government of a political force which has not yet fully rejected its fascist roots, can only be understood by the other countries of the European Union as a dangerous signal of a new anti-European and nationalist orientation in Italian politics. And any anti-European divergence by Italy could inflict a mortal blow to the European project, already seriously in crisis because of the international disorder provoked by the break-up of the USSR.

These fears can only be banished with facts, i.e. with an explicit government programme which places the building of the European Federation among the priorities of Italian foreign policy, together with full respect of the commitments taken on by Italy in the Treaty of Maastricht. Italian and European politics do not exist in separate, watertight compartments. Europe is by now a community of destiny. Italy no longer has the means - an army and a currency - to develop a foreign and an economic policy independent of the European Union. In particular, after the realisation of the internal market, it is illusory to think relations between state and market can be changed without taking account of the constraints of Maastricht, which affect not only monetary and financial, but also social aspects. Great Britain has tried in vain to activate an economic policy that is relatively autonomous from that of the Union. If Italy wanted to follow the English way, the only result it would obtain would be to distance itself

even further from Europe, without resolving the structural problems of monetary stability, productivity of the economic system and efficiency in public administration.

Without a European outlet, no piece of institutional engineering will succeed in freeing Italian politics from the chronic ills afflicting it: consociational politics, corruption, and bad government. The apparent alternative between right and left may turn out in fact to be a mere illusion, and even a disaster, if the parties which are inspired by those values are not able to conduct the process of political reform to the point of forming a European right wing and European left wing. To become really European, the right wing must set out to increase the autonomy of the market from public administration, guaranteeing a greater efficiency to both, without forgetting that market and public administration now have an ineradicable European dimension. Moreover, it must take care that, in a European Union which is abolishing frontiers, anachronistic claims to new borders and national power do not regain political legitimacy within the right wing. On the other hand, the left, or at least its most substantial compone

nt, which has for some time adopted the social democrat reformist programme, will not be credible to the voters as long as it tries to realise these objectives only within a national context and does not fight concretely for a European development plan and for a new, more just and peaceful international order, of which the European Union represents the keystone.

The structural nature of parties and of the political system they generate depends on the type of state in which they act and on the nature of the international system in which the state operates. The centralised post-unification state generated trasformismo (Translator's note: a technique developed in the nineteenth century of putting together parliamentary majorities from separate political entities) and fascism, when Italy had to exercise the role of a European power; it generated the permanent party of government and consociational politics during the cold war, when the alternative between right and left was in fact blocked by the international contraposition between superpowers, and power over currency and foreign policy was progressively transferred to the European Union. Thus a neat and fatal split was created between politics, which remained national, and responsibility for the great choices of government, which became increasingly European. For this reason Italian politics degenerated to the point

of turning into a brutal struggle for power. At national level, where the power struggle goes on, the great policy decisions are no longer made. At European level decisions are made, but the citizens do not participate and are subject to the decisions of national government, often taken in secret and in any case by means of non-democratic procedures. Today the cold war has finished and, thanks to European integration, which represents a decisive factor for stability and prosperity, radical changes in the form of the Italian state and political system have become possible. These changes will however only be beneficial if their explicit objective is to bring Italy into step with Europe. The parties represent the seat of ideological debate and of the organisation of consensus. The state institutions are the means to achieve political programmes. The institutional reforms under way - the creation of a federal state to replace the old centralist and bureaucratic structures, an electoral and governmental system wh

ich allows alternation - are going in the right direction to make Italy a European state. But these reforms only represent a part of a more ample and radical reform: the construction of the European Federation, the only state context in which monetary, economic and military independence can be guaranteed for all Europeans. For this reason the Italian parties must realise that only by becoming really European will they be able to achieve the ideals of freedom, democracy and justice which they profess.

The parties have in their hands not only the fate of Italy, but also that of Europe. If they betray the European cause, they will betray their own values, leading to the ruin of both Italy and Europe.

Today, the real alternative is not between national right and left, but between a national and a European policy. Without an effective European government, any Italian policy is destined to fail. A European prospect exists, even though its realisation remains highly uncertain because of the weakness of the European institutions and the insubstantial nature of the European parties. It is the Delors Plan, which indicates the essential lines of a European programme of sustainable development, to which every national government can contribute while maintaining its own orientation in economic policy. It is thus in this perspective that Italy must actively operate. Only if Europe is able to tackle effectively the problems of development and employment will the Italians be able to enjoy a new economic miracle, as happened in the sixties after the launch of the Common Market.

The building of Europe is still seriously incomplete. For this reason Europe is not in a position to act effectively for itself or for the world. The crucial process of transformation and reform going on in Italy will not be completed as long as there is no real democratic European government responsible to the European Parliament, seat and centre of a political debate animated by real European parties. The European Federation is not a distant utopia. The Treaty of Maastricht institutes a pre-federal Union, assigning broad powers to the European Parliament, which, starting from the next legislature, will be able to pass a vote of confidence - or of no confidence - in the European Commission, whose programme of government must thus obtain the consent of the majority of European parliamentarians. Furthermore, on 10th February this year the European Parliament approved a procedure for the passing of a European Constitution, which the new Parliament which will be elected on 12th June will have to take care of. T

his project for a federal Constitution must represent the essential basis for the reform of the European Union already planned in the Treaty of Maastricht for 1996.

Only in a united and democratic Europe can Italian democracy really renew itself and progress. The European Federalist Movement, which has been fighting since 1943 for the European Federation in full independence from all political parties and without presenting itself as an electoral force so as not to divide the Europeanist forces, invites all democratic parties to solemnly undertake before their own voters to make the next European Parliament a constituent assembly, and invites the Committees for the Defence of the Democratic Rights of the European Citizens to promote the European evolution of the Italian parties and to exercise the greatest vigilance with regard to the political class, to prevent Italy drifting onto any anti-European and nationalist track.