Italian politics at the start of 2023

At the beginning of 2023, Italy was governed by a coalition of parties whose pursuit of an unambiguously right-wing policy agenda reflected its solid parliamentary majority (amounting to 237 of 400 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 115 of 200 seats in the Senate) and the weaknesses of the forces of the left. The period since the Government had been sworn in on 22 October had provided ample confirmation that its assumption of office had been the prelude to a clear rightward shift in Italian politics. The election of Ignazio La Russa and Lorenzo Fontana as presidents of the Senate and Chamber respectively had raised eyebrows in view of their past expressions of support for far-right causes. The early introduction of legislation ostensibly outlawing rave parties gave rise to a minor public outcry (forcing the government to amend the legislation) when it became apparent that one implication of it would be to outlaw demonstrations and other legitimate expressions of protest. Less than two months after taking office, the Government was locked in conflict with humanitarian vessels rescuing asylum seekers at risk of drowning in the Mediterranean. In December, it was busy keeping its promise to dismantle the anti-poverty citizenship income as well pursuing so-called ‘flat tax’ proposals in conflict with principles of progressivity. It was not surprising, therefore, that in reflecting, on 4 January, on the new government’s first 100 days (or, more accurately, its first 74 days), la Repubblica editor, Maurizio Molinari, was moved to observe that in a country with 15 million people living below the poverty threshold there was a real risk of growing inequality arising from the Government’s agenda.¹

Extreme inequality not only significantly restricts the power and opportunities available to the many at the bottom of the distribution it also restricts the ability of governments to invest in meeting the challenges of the twenty-first century such as climate change. For example, the authors of the ‘World Inequality Report 2022’² make the point that steeply progressive taxation was crucial to ensuring the political and social acceptability of the increased taxation that made possible the rise of the modern welfare states of the middle of the twentieth century. They point out that given the very large volumes of wealth increasingly concentrated at the top of the distribution, even ‘modest progressive taxes can generate significant revenues for governments’.³ Wealth concentration in Italy is high – in 2021, the top 10% of the population owned 48% of household wealth, while the bottom half held just 10% – but lower than in most EU countries.⁴ Therefore, while it is not as significant a problem as in comparable countries, it is unlikely to lose its salience as a political issue. For example, bearing in mind that income and wealth inequalities are tightly connected to differences in contributions to climate change and that such differences are extreme, it is clear that effective climate policies will need to target the wealthy polluters more. In Italy, for instance, the top 1% of emitters in 2019 produced on average 63.0 tonnes of CO₂ per capita, the bottom 50%, 5.2 tonnes.⁵ The experience of France – where in 2018 a hike in the carbon tax, combined with the abolition of the progressive wealth tax, brought forth the so-called Yellow Vest movement – stands as a warning against attempts to address climate change without also addressing issues of inequality. So since the Meloni government seems unlikely to take these issues seriously, having given every indication that it is wedded to neo-liberal orthodoxy and ‘trickle-down’ economics,⁶ so its likely performance in the area of climate change must, presumably, also be regarded as doubtful.

An additional cloud on the horizon at the start of 2023 concerned the Government’s proposals for constitutional change. On the one hand, commentators such as Galli (2023) argued that a significant change altering the way in which the national political will was formed would have a positive political effect, promoting the right to the status of constituent party. This would enable it to acquire a legitimacy it had never entirely been able to achieve as a party that had been excluded from the so-called ‘constitutional arch’ of the founding document of 1948. On the other hand, the proposals raised legitimate concerns of both method and substance. Regarding the former, it seemed likely that the Government would act quickly; and, indeed, it was reportedly (Ciriaco 2023) aiming to have a proposal ready to be voted on by June, either with the support of the opposition parties, if possible, but if necessary without them. Speed would have the advantage that the reform might be achieved before the Government’s honeymoon period was well and truly over and its popularity had begun to decline. This would be essential if the reform failed to win the support of the opposition and were therefore voted on in a constitutional referendum – which government and premier would find being framed, despite themselves, as a plebiscite on their own performances, as had happened in 2016. However, the notion that the right might push through significant constitutional change on the strength of its own votes alone – securing quick ratification in a plebiscite it might seek to win by stoking the flames of populism and anti-political sentiments, as had happened in 2020 – not surprisingly caused considerable anxiety among opposition parties. This was because of the substance of the proposed reforms: in essence, a wholesale shift from a parliamentary to a presidential form of government. At the very least, such a shift would arguably gain traction from and reflect the plebiscitarian assumptions that had become deeply rooted in the political culture (Floridia 2018): assumptions according to which, the purpose of elections is less to enable the peaceful management and reconciliation of competing political projects than to enable the. investiture of leaders with the power to issue orders. At worst, if the presidentialism to be proposed was the one Meloni had proposed in June 2018, then it might significantly undermine, if not destroy, the capacity of Parliament to hold governments to account (Newell 2022).

However, at the beginning of 2023, it was difficult to have much confidence in the capacity of the opposition parties effectively to resist the forward march of the right, as they were hopelessly divided. On the one hand, there were, it is true, at least some grounds for optimism. Despite a minor hiccup occurring when Giuseppe Conte was photographed during the Christmas holidays having a meal at a luxury hotel, his party seemed to have consolidated its position as the most credible spokesperson on issues concerning poverty and inequality, overtaking the Partito Democratico (Democratic Party, PD) to take its place as second-largest party. Meanwhile, issues of equity had potential, seemingly, to play into its hands. The end-of-year finance law had raised the profile of a long-standing resentment among many voters: the unequal tax treatment of employees and the self-employed. Polls suggested that wages, employment and taxes remained at the top of the public’s agenda as priorities for the Government in 2023 (Di Francesco 2023). Inflation and the economic fall-out from the war in Ukraine would in all probability continue to be significant challenges. The first cracks were beginning to appear in public support for the Government.⁷ On the other hand, the PD was in desperately difficult circumstances, in search of a new leader and a clear political profile, in increasing danger of losing votes and other forms of support to the Movimento Cinque Stelle (Five-star Movement, M5s) to its left and to Azione and Italia Viva to its right. The latter parties, meanwhile, as parties of the centre, could only be considered completely unreliable as potential partners in opposing the Government, for the political project of small centre parties, almost by definition, is to acquire and maintain power by playing left and right off against each other. They were unwilling to cooperate with the M5s under any circumstances, placing the PD in a seemingly irresolvable dilemma: it could, potentially, have cooperation with the forces to its left or to its right, but not the cooperation of both. It was understandable, therefore, that at the start of the New Year, there were even some contributors to the public discussion of the party’s future wondering out loud whether it might sooner or later suffer the fate of the French Parti socialiste and the Greek Panhellenic Socialist Movement, Pasok.

At the start of 2023, therefore, if the prospects of both government and opposition were uncertain, then this seemed to be far truer of the latter than of the former. February would be a crucial month, with regional elections taking place in Lombardia and Lazio on the 12^th and 13^th, closely followed by the PD’s leadership election on the 19^th. Rarely would such elections have been more influential in determining the prospects for a progressive future, or otherwise, for the country.

Notes

1. ‘Molinari: “Il vero rischio del governo di destra di Meloni … .”’, Tagadà, la7, 4 January 2023, https://www.la7.it/tagada/video/molinari-il-vero-rischio-del-governo-di-destra-di-meloni-04-01-2023–466715.

2. Available at https://wir2022.wid.world/.

3. ‘World Inequality Report 2022’, Executive summary, https://wir2022.wid.world/executive-summary.

4. ‘World Inequality Report 2022’, Country appendix, https://wir2022.wid.world/country-appendix-glossary.

5. Ibid.

6. In her end-of-year press conference the Prime Minister had said that her guiding light in matters concerning employment and taxation would be refraining from disturbing ‘the wealth creators’: ‘non disturbare chi produce’ (Gasparetto 2022).

7. According to a poll conducted on 2 January for the Rai3 talk show, Agorà, confidence in the Government had slipped to 48% from the 50% expressing ‘quite a lot’ or ‘a great deal’ of confidence on 19 December (Di Francesco 2023).