Italian politics and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: Quo vadis?

As the journal’s editors, Maurizio Carbone and I are delighted that with the publication of this issue, Contemporary Italian Politics is once again providing the platform for the English-language edition of Politica in Italia, the fifth year in a row that it has done so. Politica in Italia is published each year by il Mulino with the sponsorship of the Istituto Carlo Cattaneo based in Bologna, and the School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University of Bologna (SAIS-JHU). The latest edition, dedicated to developments in 2021, has been guest-edited by Giliberto Capano and Giulia Sandri to whom we are enormously grateful.

By offering each year description and analysis of the most significant economic, social and political events of the previous twelve months, Politica in Italia implicitly invites its contributors, and especially the guest editors, to reflect on the extent to which the year in question has been one of continuity or change. In the present case, the editors’ reflections are especially interesting as 2021 began with the events culminating in the February appointment of the Draghi government. As the government was appointed in the middle of the pandemic emergency, and as Draghi himself is a man with considerable prestige – one whose authority derives directly from a president who, given the circumstances, was able to act independently of the parties – Draghi has, from the start, been very powerful as Italian prime ministers go. Consequently, 2021 was, as Capano and Sandri point out, a year that raised significant questions about the extent to which it marked continuity or change ‘in the evolution of the Italian political system and in the overall functioning of the Italian polity’ (Capano and Sandri 2022). Their conclusion is that the decisive governance exemplified by the Draghi executive was a significant novelty, a new trajectory of political change having been generated by the government’s formation; by the policy changes stemming from that, and by the changes among those in charge of managing responses to the pandemic.

To reflect on whether the recent past has mainly been one of continuity or change is implicitly to make suggestions about what the future will look like. In that regard, it is significant that the Russian invasion of Ukraine appears to have brought the continuation of two of the most obvious novelties in Italian politics in 2021 (or more accurately 2021 and 2020), namely, perceptions of national emergency and the phenomenon of ‘rallying around the flag’ (Bordignon, Diamanti, and Turato 2022). These have in turn helped to ensure a continuation of Draghi’s authority and made it difficult for the parties to recover for themselves the role they play in ‘normal’ circumstances. At the beginning of the year, it had looked as though the fading of the Covid emergency and the approach of the next parliamentary election (which must be held no later than the spring of 2023), was increasing the government’s fragility and bringing a decline in Draghi’s authority as the parties sought to ‘snatch back’ (Capano and Sandri 2022) the power they had relinquished with the government’s appointment the previous February. Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, this seems, to a degree at least, to have gone into reverse. Draghi’s popular approvals ratings remain very buoyant.¹ On the centre right, the more or less populist and sovereigntist forces, which had already been placed on the back foot by NextGenerationEU, have been thrown even further onto the defensive by the unity and decisiveness of Europe’s response to the invasion and by the political and economic pressures for further integration to which it has given rise. Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini have suffered considerable embarrassment thanks to their past expressions of admiration for Vladimir Putin. On the centre left, attempts by the Movimento Cinque Stelle (Five-star Movement, M5s) to secure a revision of Italy’s NATO-related commitment to increase defence spending to 2% of GDP by 2024 had at the end of March seemed momentarily to place the government’s survival in doubt – but were then rapidly defused by a combination of firmness on the part of the Prime Minister and mediation by the Partito Democratico (Democratic Party, PD).

The war in Ukraine looked as though it would affect basic assumptions of Italian politics in at least four further ways besides. First, there was the likely economic impact, with the indirect effects being especially severe. Prior to the outbreak of the conflict, Italy’s trade with Russia had been worth about €20 billion per year, that with Ukraine approximately €5 billion, meaning that the two countries combined accounted for less than 3% of Italy’s foreign trade of around €900 billion. The problem was that Russia and Ukraine were significant exporters of raw materials and agricultural products (Ukraine often being referred to as the ‘breadbasket of Europe’) so that interruptions to the export of these commodities would threaten global supply chains and add to inflation. For example, the two countries together account for a quarter of the world’s production of wheat, used for the production of a wide range of foods including bread and pasta. The slowdown in the rate of growth worldwide that would result from these shocks seemed likely to hit Italy especially hard given that its trade-to-GDP ratio (at around 60%) is above the world average (at around 56%). Governments would find it difficult to prop-up falling household incomes given the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio of 157% in 2021 – whose reduction was only likely to be made more difficult by a declining growth rate (with the Government, in early April, reducing its 2022 forecast from 4.7% to 3.1%).

Second, the potential economic difficulties were significantly compounded by the country’s heavy dependence on supplies of Russian gas. If the EU decided to ban the import of these supplies, then, although the impact would probably not be felt immediately, it would certainly be very unequal given the much larger proportion of incomes spent on energy by poorer than by richer households. Draghi’s suggestion, during a press conference on 6 April, that Italians might have to choose between peace or air conditioning, drew the criticism from some² that, behind the remark, there did not appear to be much by way of a strategy to help households and firms ride out the consequences of any import ban. Meanwhile, it was evident that attempts to reduce dependence on Russia would have significant consequences for the timing and the substance of the country’s plans for transitioning to renewable energy.

Third, with at least 4 million Ukrainians having fled their homes and some 72,000 having arrived in Italy by the end of March, the issue of migration looked set to reacquire a high profile on the public agenda. The impact, in terms of policy makers’ and citizens’ attitudes remained to be seen, but there was at least the possibility that there might be a shift in a more positive direction as compared with recent years. When, on 3 April, news arrived of over eighty people having lost their lives off the coast of Libya, there were calls on the part of Church leaders for the welcome shown to Ukrainian refugees to be extended to those fleeing war and poverty more generally.

Finally, it was apparent that the war in Ukraine had brought significant changes to the geopolitical context within which Italian policy makers would in future have to act. Among other things, it seemed likely that the stances of the United States would be much less certain than in the past; for it faced not two but three adversaries – Russia, China and its own internal divisions (Petroni 2022) – and its large size and relative self-sufficiency made it much less exposed than the European states to the economic fall-out from the war. The international profile suddenly acquired by Volodymyr Zelensky – reflecting the mixture of charisma and communications know-how previously exemplified in national arenas by the likes of Berlusconi, Grillo and Trump (Calise 2022) – made him a global political celebrity, and suggested that the war’s media profile would remain high. News of atrocities such as those that came to light in the town of Bucha at the end of March pointed in the same direction, and perhaps too to escalation of the conflict thanks to the CNN effect.

With the publication of next year’s edition of Politica in Italia it will be possible to establish whether, and if so to what extent, these predictions have come to pass. This year’s edition has shed light on how the February events of last year have affected development and change in Italian politics. With the publication of next year’s edition, we will also know how, if at all, the February events of this year have done so.

Notes

1. Tecnè srl / agenzia dire, 2 April 2022, http://www.sondaggipoliticoelettorali.it/GestioneSondaggio.aspx

2. E.g. from Massimo Cacciari during the Otto e mezzo broadcast on 7 April: https://www.la7.it/otto-e-mezzo/rivedila7/ucraina-ci-servono-armi-armi-armi-otto-e-mezzo-puntata-del-742022-07-04-2022-433288