Italian Republican history suggests that the longer a crisis the more unstable the government. It took just two weeks to replace Conte 1 with Conte 2
A speedy crisis guarantees a long life. This is at least what the precedents would seem to indicate, one of the few reasons for optimism for the current Italian government, seeing as in September it took just two weeks between Conte resigning the mandate for his first government and swearing in his second one. And the main reason that promoted such a fast resolution of the crisis was the need to have a sitting government capable of avoiding an increase in VAT. So much so that the according to its main sponsor, Matteo Renzi, this could have even be termed a “no tax” government. The ensuing developments have shown that one excuse was as good as the next: the main thing was putting the crisis behind them.
From the start of what is commonly known as the “second republic” to the present day, on three occasions the problems in forming a new government have meant that the crisis has lasted for a long time. This has always happened after elections. In 2018 it took 87 days to launch the first Conte government, a record in Italian republican history (longer crises have always resulted in the dissolution of parliament). In 1992 the first Amato government required 82 days to start hobbling along, as it straddled the end of party rule in Italy and the start of a new era. In 2013 it took 60 days for the Letta government to be instated. In all other instances, with the sole exception of Berlusconi’s watershed first attempt – a quick solution to the crisis has enabled the prime ministers to enjoy a long stay in Palazzo Chigi, either to the end of the legislature or in any case much longer compared to the laborious initiations of Amato, Letta and the first Conte.
One could easily draw the conclusion that the governments that are more complicated to get on their feet are those where the chemistry between the coalition forces is most unstable, and thus fated to be short lived. But the case of the current government, born out of the sudden embrace between two sworn enemies, the Democratic Party and the 5 Star Movement, invites us to look at the internal rhythms of Italian politics a little closer.
One of the most overused quotes, to the extent that no one knows who coined it, claims that “in politics timing is everything”. To be more accurate one should say that in politics time is a fairly relative concept. A month to solve a crisis may seem a short time or a very long one, depending on who’s telling the story and the emphasis placed on the need to install a new government. What happened in 2013 is a case in point, when Giorgio Napolitano extended the time for consultations and discussions between the parties, after the ballot boxes has produced a parliament split three ways: centre-left, 5 Stars and centre-right. The slow interlude – during which Grillo’s faction outlined the famous government “prorogation” theory – subjected Pierluigi Bersani, at the head of the PD, to all manner of humiliations, an extended ritual featuring streaming ambushes and mockery on blogs. In other words there was plenty of time to sound out all the irredeemable differences between the 5 Stars and the PD which would never allow them to reach any kind of alliance. It’s worth noting that the starting conditions were much more favourable than they are today: the centre-left coalition was missing forty odd seats in the Senate but had a solid absolute majority in the Lower House. And the 5 Stars were a little different, but more importantly they hadn’t yet governed with the League.
The long drawn out pause, during which time the Italian president even appointed a commission of ten experts that was supposed to suggest jointly approved economic and institutional reforms, enabled the slow gestation of a so called “broad agreement” government between the first and the third coalition with the most votes, a pact between the centre-left and the centre-right with the 5 Stars in opposition. Enrico Letta’s government. As proof of the relativity of urgency, all commentators who had well understood and gone along with Napolitano’s slow dance, became suddenly nervous on the second day of voting for the President of the Republic, in April of that same 2013. After the first vote with a reduced quorum failed, by the fourth, the press and television started to claim that a complete stalemate had been reached and democracy was in danger. When in actual fact everything was perfectly normal: in the eleven previous elections, only two Republican presidents had been elected on the first vote, while repeat votes were much more frequent, up to 23 rounds of voting.
The doomsday feeling of April 2013 – a Corriere della Sera editorial was titled “The Republic teetering over the brink” – was crucial in the re-election of Napolitano. Brave solutions always turn up when life is breathing down your neck: as is well-known this is the only instance in the history of the Republic when a president has been elected for a second term.
This year too, in August, when the crisis of the first Conte government came to a head, the most pressing need was to make haste. Yet two weeks passed between the day Salvini announced the collapse of the alliance (8 August) and the day Conte appeared before the Senate to make his communications, burn all bridges with Salvini and promptly head up to the Presidential palace to hand in his resignations (20 August). The time was not wasted. It was the time required to move from inevitable early elections to the formation of a new majority under the same prime minister. Something that when the League had first announced the break up seemed absolutely impossible, even in the eyes to some of the main players involved (Zingaretti and Salvini himself). Renzi was the quickest to make his move, chance his stance around and open to a government with the 5 Star Movement.
This was an extremely bold move and for this very reason the whole process had to be completed quickly. The time that had passed so slowly between the 8th and the 20th of August, started to race along once Conte had handed in his resignation. At this point waiting was no longer on the cards, “the crisis must be solved in short order as a great country like ours requires” Mattarella warned. And thus, after just two weeks of consultations and discussions, the new prime minister was in a position to lift reservations and swear for the second time. In that brief space of time a historic shift had taken place, two fiercely rival parties (Di Maio right until the last day refused to pronounce the word “PD”) had reached an agreement and signed a shared programme. If they’d had time to think it over, to work seriously around the possible convergences between the 5 Star Movement and the Democrats, to take stock of the 14 month alliance between Grillo’s faction and the League, the government would almost certainly not have been borne. However much talk there has been of a “German style alliance” – in truth the same had already been done at the time of the “government contract” between the 5 Stars and the League and we saw how that panned out – the quick Italian style agreement is as far removed from the German experience as can be imagined. In that case the text of the government agreement – a 78 page preliminary outline and a 177 page final document – was worked on by 18 committees and dozens of experts, and was then voted on by the delegates of the CDU congress and by almost 500,000 members of the SPD. In Italy the outrageous switch that led Grillo’s people and the Democrats to form a government together was approved unanimously (bar one) by the PD directorate that just a few days earlier had voted unanimously on an opposite motion – never with the 5 Stars. And by 63,000 members (out of 10 million people who voted the Movement) on the Rousseau platform, an infrastructure that has been fined by the privacy authority because it doesn’t rule out the possibility of management tampering with the results.
In Germany the solution to the crisis took six months. A time that Italy couldn’t afford because it had to comply with budget deadlines and avoid a rise in VAT. This led to the birth of this “emergency” executive. Which presented its first two budget documents, the NADEF and the draft budget for the EU Commission, late. And has also considered raising VAT.
@andreafabozzi
This article is also published in the November/December issue of eastwest.
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Italian Republican history suggests that the longer a crisis the more unstable the government. It took just two weeks to replace Conte 1 with Conte 2
A speedy crisis guarantees a long life. This is at least what the precedents would seem to indicate, one of the few reasons for optimism for the current Italian government, seeing as in September it took just two weeks between Conte resigning the mandate for his first government and swearing in his second one. And the main reason that promoted such a fast resolution of the crisis was the need to have a sitting government capable of avoiding an increase in VAT. So much so that the according to its main sponsor, Matteo Renzi, this could have even be termed a “no tax” government. The ensuing developments have shown that one excuse was as good as the next: the main thing was putting the crisis behind them.
