Italy’s government has collapsed and president Sergio Mattarella has appointed Mario Draghi to serve as prime minister until a new government is formed. If elections were held today however, Italy’s populist parties would gain enough support to form and control their own government – a problem for the pro-EU, Eurocentric political establishment in Italy.
If elections were to take place chances are high Matteo Salvini would become Italy’s next prime minister. Salvini can be thought of as Italy’s Donald Trump.
His party, Lega (or League), is currently the most popular party in the country. It’s fellow populist party Fratelli d’Italia (or Brothers of Italy) is currently the third most popular. These two parties alone enjoy the support of 40% of the Italian people.
By contrast, former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s Italia Viva (Italy Alive) party is polling at 3%. It was Renzi’s decision to pull two of his party’s ministers from Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s government that precipitated this crisis.
The cause of the fallout between Conte and Renzi is a 222 billion Euro ($268 billion) Covid19 bailout fund given to Italy by the European Union. Both Conte and Renzi wanted final say in how those funds are managed. Critics say the monies amount to a slush fund that will be used to buy support from political figures and patronage from establishment figures.
Along with that though are greater forces at play looking to further bind Italy to the European Union.
In addition to accepting (and controlling) the bailout fund, Renzi also wants to borrow heavily from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) – an additional bailout fund set up by the European Union that offers up to 36 billion euros in cheap loans for countries looking to bolster their health systems.
Borrowing from the fund would further lock Italy into the EU. Conte has so far been resistant to the idea, which may reveal the reason for a crisis few in Italy wanted or can explain.
Inserting Draghi into Chigi Palace may mean pro-EU forces have their ideal pick in place for at least two years – just enough time to send Italy into a dependency-spiral not easily escaped.
Keeping the People in Check
The president is largely a ceremonial figure in the Italian system of government. During political crises however they can wield immense power. They have the authority to unilaterally appoint a prime minister they believe has the best chance to form a majority government. Draghi’s job however (as someone extremely unlikely to be popularly elected in Italy) may be to not form a majority government.
Most of the other political parties will be keen to keep parties like League and Brothers at bay. As former minister for family and equal opportunities Elena Bonetti told CNBC recently, “What we are unwilling to do is forge an alliance with a populist, anti-European right-wing government.”
“We believe that we must place the future prospects of Italy firmly within a European context. So, there will be no populist or anti-European choices made.”
Such defiance in the face of the political will of Italy’s people may ultimately be what brought this “crisis” about. Because Mattarella only has a year left in office he will be unable to call snap elections.
Under Italian law, a president cannot dissolve the legislature within six months of the end of his term, a period known as Semestre Bianco or the “White Semester.” Mattarella was elected on January 31, 2015 to one seven-year term, meaning his “White Semester” begins at the end of July. If elections aren’t held this spring Draghi could be Italy’s prime minister until January 2022.
The current Italian legislature is due to expire in the spring of 2023 however, meaning in January 2022 a new political climate will be in place and with it new controversy: with the expiration of the legislature just one year away, which parliament should elect the next prime minister, the outgoing one or the new one when it is elected?
While it may be unlikely, Draghi could be Italy’s prime minister for two years, more than enough time to bind Italy to the EU.
All Roads Lead to Rome…
The entire plan to dissolve the Trump presidency allegedly originated in Italy: first through SpyGate and then ItalyGate.
Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese professor associated at the time with Rome’s Link University, was allegedly the first person to tell Trump campaign personnel Russia had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. That statement would be the genesis of the Russia affair.
Mifsud has subsequently faced allegations he was an operative of Western intelligence services sent to “set up” members of the Trump campaign.
New allegations have come to light that say the Nov. 3 U.S. election was electronically manipulated from various locations in Italy – including the U.S. Embassy in Rome – using technological infrastructure owned and operated by Italian defense contractor Leonardo SpA.
Maria Zack of Nations in Action, a government accountability organization, is spearheading the efforts to bring those allegations to light. Both SpyGate and ItalyGate were allegedly part of a plan put in place by the Obama administration working with Renzi when he was prime minister.
…and apparently Beijing.
The CCP considers Italy a main target of its Belt and Road Initiative, a trillion-dollar plan to tie together China, Asia, Africa, South America and Europe through shipping- and land-trading routes.
The BRI has been widely recognized as a way to bring developing – and then eventually debt-ridden developed – countries into the CCP’s sphere of influence. It is nonetheless (or perhaps it logically follows that it is) fawned over by the world’s elites.
“You go to Davos and you see a few heads of state. You go to the Belt and Road Summit and you see more than anywhere in the world except at the United Nations General Assembly, and they’re all there to do strategy at the convening of Beijing who they want to write more checks,” said Ian Bremmer in 2019.
“That’s pretty extraordinary. You see that there are lots of countries in the world that are willing to do Beijing’s bidding politically because the Chinese are the only ones that are able to do long-term strategy and put cash behind it…[It is a] way for the Chinese to develop real political leverage around the world that otherwise they’d have a hard time picking up.”
Ian Bremmer is a political scientist and founder of geopolitical-risk consulting firm Eurasia Group.
China believes “BRI brings them several benefits. First new export markets, promotion of Chinese currency, tariff reductions, access to new trade routes and most importantly…political influence,” said Michelle Flournoy, a Defense Department official under both Presidents Clinton and Obama.
China has already taken over Greece’s largest shipping port, acquiring a 51% stake in Athens’ Piraeus Port in 2016. The deal, worth hundreds of millions of Euros, has provisions in it that allows China to acquire up to 67% of the total shares in the port. Interestingly, talks to sell the port to China, after initially stalling, resumed after Greece agreed to an 86 billion euro bailout deal with the European Union, driving it further into debt.
Doorway to Western Europe…and the U.S.
Italian shipping ports may be the next target for China. In 2019 Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Rome where a Memorandum of Understanding worth nearly $3 billion in economic agreements was signed between the two nations.
Leonardo has done quite a bit of business with China for decades. In recent years the relationship has deepened. In 2014 it signed two strategic agreements with Chinese companies which Renzi personally oversaw. In 2018 Leonardo signed an agreement with a Chinese investment group to develop a long range airliner.
Italy is a G7 economy and if it were to break away from the EU in the wake of Brexit the entire union’s fate would be put in jeopardy. That may also explain why so much of the interference in the Trump presidency originated in Rome.
Mario Draghi has seemingly been handpicked to drive a nail in the coffin of the Italian Eurosceptic movement and bind it to the EU for decades to come. A former head of the European Central Bank and former employee at Wall Street banking giant Goldman Sachs, Draghi was once called the “greatest central banker of all time.”
He is credited with nearly single-handedly saving the Euro in 2012. He was also the subject of President Trump’s ire in 2019 for allegedly keeping the value of the Euro in relation to the Dollar artificially low, thus bolstering European exports against those of the U.S.
Now it seems he has been brought on to further the Chinese Communist Party’s creep westward and help it gain the foothold in Europe it’s been craving. Italy seems to be the doorway to western Europe and ultimately the United States China seems intent on driving through. Which may be why it is currently the front line in the war between nationalists and patriots.