BY C.RÙMPELNIK
Rome. For Europe December 4th might well be an appointment with its own destiny. Presidential elections in Austria might vault Norbert Hofer, the congenial candidate of the country’s far-right movement, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) into the, at least in name, highest office of the state. Two weeks off the election, the race is in a dead heat, with Hofer’s opponent, Alexander Van der Bellen, representative of the Green Party, a clumsy intellectual, struggling to attract the centrist and Christian Democratic vote that, in all probability, is going to swing the election.
Albeit more moderate than his party’s mainstream – a Freedom Party legislator once called for deportations to be conducted with military planes so that the deportees could quote “shout and cry and urinate on themselves” without bothering anyone - Norbert Hofer is a staunch social conservative that boasts his populist and xenophobic credentials. Although he has flip-flopped on the issue of Austria’s continued EU membership, it is all too clear that he does not care to much about Jean-Claude Juncker, Martin Schulz and the other members of “Brussel’s aloof glitterati”. Instead, he is pushing for Austria to join the Visegrád-Four, a group of Eastern European nations (Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary) sceptical of further Pan-European integration.
With Norbert Hofer’s election looming ahead, it might seem implausible that December 4th might hold another, incomparably more significant threat to European unity. And yet it does. The real menace in fact lies on the other side of the Alps, in Italy, where Prime Minister Matteo Renzi faces defeat in a constitutional referendum turned plebiscite over his government’s policies and the Prime Minister himself.
What is so pivotal about this constitutional referendum? Frankly, the supranational importance of the proposed modifications is slim to none, the repercussions will be felt mostly on the national and regional level. The reform’s dimensions are limited and revolve around an overdue reform of Italy’s two-chamber system that in the context of a fragmented political environment, stifles the legislative process and makes pushing even middle-sized bills through parliament a daunting task.
Well, on a factual level the intitiative is far from flawless. Particularly in combination with a new electoral system, the “Italicum”, which awards the winning party a majority premium that allows it to govern without having to form coalitions, however small the margin of victory had been, constitutionalists like Gustavo Zagrebelsky, former president of Italy's constitutional court, argue, it concentrates too much power in the hands of a single person, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and undermines the current system of checks and balances. Moreover, governors and regional leaders, especially in wealthier Northern Italy, fret that the reform will further centralize the decision-making process and weaken the already toothless regional governments. The same concern is shared by Ital’s linguistic minorities in Southern Tyrol (German) and the Aosta Valley (French) who the Prime Minister has tried to appease offering concession on regional autonomy.
Yet, these concerns, however valid they may be, are strictly constrained to Italy’s poltical arena and the balance of power between Italian institutions. They not even remotely involve the European Union and the process of European integration. And if the prime minister were to win December 4th’s referendum the repercussions would be irrelevant because inexistent.
Unfortunately, the prime minister is not going to win it. Even if we were to give him the benfit of the doubt, he would need one and a half miracle to turn this referendum. And that is, at least primarily, his own fault.
Constitutional reforms, albeit critical to the functioning of modern democracy and its institutions, are in nature a rather barren subject. Matteo Renzi who is, of course, no political ignoramous, was clearly aware of that when, last spring, a still very popular PM took the pivotal decision to "personalize" the vote, turning a referndum that most Italians were bound to find only borderline interesting, in a highly emotional plebiscite. He decided to resign should he fail to deliver and lose the referendum.
Half a year later Matteo Renzi's approval ratings have nosedived, as a result of both partisan meddling and unpopular reforms failing to deliver the promised economic alleviations for the average Italian citizen. With the result that the average Italian citizen is now ready to bring down his entire administration by voting "No" on December 4th.
Matteo Renzi's resignation, however, would deal another blow to an already labile European Union. The europhobic Five Star Movement, which is leading polls, already has announced once the vote is in, it will be pushing for legislative election, regardless on which electoral system they were to be based. In this quest the "grillini" are joined by the once secessionist "Lega Nord" whose leader Matteo Salvini is preceived as the voice of French right-winger Marine Le Pen South of the Alps.
Should the Lega Nord leave its traditional place on the right wing of the lose center-right alliance formed by Silvio Berlusconi's sklerotic Forza Italia and its other conservative to nationalist partners and join forces with the Five Star Movement following the next election, Italy would find itself run by clueless megolomaniacs way out of their lead in running a country, even if it were less fragile (both economically and politically) than Italy.
Rome is a case in point. The FSM took the city in a coup de main in June's municipal elections, after former mayor Ignazio Marino, an aloof leftist loathed even within its own party, had proven to be unfit in dealing with the city's wide range of problems, ranging from dysfunctional public transport and waste disposal system to endemic corruption.
The new FSM mayor Virginia Raggi, a likeable lawyer and former municipal deputy, however proved even more inept. First thing she didn't manage to alleviate the plight of citzens living in those lower class neighborhoods most affected by the city's failure to erect a functioning waste disposal system (In September, for instance, a video went viral that showed a bunch of rats roaming around piles of garbage in a Roman suburb). Most importantly though, she did not manage to put a stop to the corruption permeating almost every part of Rome's public sector. Nearly a dozen councillors had to resign in the first hundred days of Raggi's tenure, illustrating the Five Star Movement's abilities to fight off corruption, which coincidentally, is what they are primarily running on.
Were the Roman disaster to repeat itself on a national level, Italy would soon find itself on the brink of bankruptcy and national paralysis. And, alas, this would not be an all-Italian problem. French president Francois Hollande has already announced that he will not be seeking a second term, David Cameron has fallen prey to Brexit and Angela Merkel faces parliamentary elections that in the light of her controversial refugee policies might well pose a threat to her tenure. Italy teetering on the edge of economic and political crisis is hence the last thing the European Union needs in a moment of utmost instability. The EU could easily handle Norbert Hofer. Handle three of them, heading the most populous states of the Union, could prove tricky, though.
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