To get a sense of Europe’s political weather, take a look at Italy: For the past century, it’s served as a barometer of the continent’s mood. In the 1920s, Mussolini’s fascism presaged Hitler and the Nazis. In the ’70s, Italy’s extreme left- and right-wing terrorist movements heralded armed groups in the rest of Europe. Curious about the future of a country run by a media-savvy billionaire with hair issues? Check out how Silvio Berlusconi destroyed traditional parties with TV slogans, anti-Establishment rhetoric, and garish displays of wealth.
That’s why Europe will closely watch a Dec. 4 referendum over arcane details of Italian parliamentary procedure. The ballot could indicate whether the populism sweeping the world (think Brexit and Trump) is still ascendant or poised to abate. “Italy is like a seismograph,” says Marc Lazar, a professor at Sciences Po University in Paris. “It registers tiny political tremors that then spread to Europe and the rest of the world as bigger shocks.”
Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has staked his future on the vote, a constitutional reform aimed at shrinking the senate to make Italy more governable. He says the referendum would hit the old guard of Italian politics that’s paralyzed the country for decades, cutting the number of senators from 315 to 100, eliminating their ability to bring down the government with no-confidence votes, and reining in their power to block legislation. Although Renzi swept into office in 2014 as a fresh face pledging to make difficult choices, he’s now considered part of the Establishment, so many voters see the referendum as a chance to “drain the swamp,” Italian-style. And he’s threatened to quit if it’s rejected, so the ballot has become more of a plebiscite on Renzi himself than on the new senate rules. “This government was born to enact reforms,” says Lorenzo Guerini, deputy-secretary of Renzi’s Democratic Party. “If Italians reject the most important changes, we’ll have to deal with the consequences.”
Austria, France, the Netherlands, and Germany face presidential or parliamentary elections in the coming year, and Spain is expecting a referendum on independence for the region of Catalonia. As governments and mainstream parties struggle to counter the virulent denunciations by insurgents on everything from poor economic growth to the influx of immigrants, there’s a big chance of further gains by nationalists and populists. Next year “gives me the shivers,” Marco Buti, the European Commission’s director general for economic and financial affairs, said in a Nov. 17 speech in Rome.
While Berlusconi, who served as prime minister three times from 1994 to 2011, was undeniably populist, the trend gathered strength in 2009 with the emergence of the Five Star Movement. The nonparty, led by a former TV comedian named Beppe Grillo, created a system of online voting for its leaders and united an unlikely mix of disgruntled voters from all sides of the political spectrum. In fiery speeches peppered with expletives, Grillo and his surrogates give a voice to individuals with gripes ranging from unemployment and the euro to the dangers of climate change and the need for better relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Five Star has surged to win City Hall in Rome and Turin and is neck and neck with Renzi’s party as the biggest force in Italian politics. The movement sees the referendum as a way to bump Renzi entirely from the stage, forcing new elections that could give it a shot at forming a national government.
With parliamentary rules that grant seats in the legislature to parties with as little as 3 percent of the vote, Italy has become a petri dish for disruptive trends. That provides insurgents with a megaphone to air their grievances—and has given the country 63 governments since World War II. While constitutionalists argue the proposed reforms would curtail checks and balances designed to prevent the advent of a perilously strong leader like Mussolini, Renzi says the referendum will make Italy more stable. In the meantime, he’s taking a page from Five Star’s playbook by amping up his own populist rhetoric, railing against the bureaucrats and budget rules of the European Union, and giving other national leaders the cold shoulder.
That could well be a harbinger of things to come across Europe, says Giovanni Orsina, a professor of government at Rome’s Luiss-Guido Carli University. “Italy’s fragility makes it a breeding ground for democratic crises,” he says. “Its weak institutions mean new movements aren’t quelled or drowned out as quickly as they might be elsewhere.”
The bottom line: Europe is watching Italy, a barometer of political trends, as Austria, France, the Netherlands, and Germany brace for elections.
To contact the authors of this story: Alessandra Migliaccio in Rome at amigliaccio@bloomberg.net, John Follain in Rome at jfollain2@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Rocks at drocks1@bloomberg.net.
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