Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti’s decision to step down is bad news for Italy and for Europe. Monti has brought stability to Italy, he embarked on a path of reform, calmed the markets and, even though much more work is needed to fix the Italian economy, actually projected some hope that, yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Even the Church criticised Berlusconi’s withdrawal of support for Monti- Anthony Manduca
“Monti was a great Prime Minister of Italy and I hope that the policies he put in place will continue after the elections,” European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said in Oslo last week, where he was part of the EU delegation receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
Monti’s decision to resign came after Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right People of Liberty party, the largest bloc in Parliament, said it would no longer support the Prime Minister’s technocrat government. An election will now probably take place in February, once a Budget is approved by Parliament, two months earlier than scheduled.
After Monti’s resignation announcement Italy’s borrowing costs shot up and the stock market tumbled, which is always a bad sign. One of Monti’s main achievements during his 13 months as Prime Minister was to dramatically bring down the country’s borrowing costs. As political uncertainty increases in Italy, this will continue to reflect badly on such costs, which is not good news for the economy.
Significantly, even the Church criticised Berlusconi’s withdrawal of support for Monti’s government. The Archbishop of Genoa, Angelo Bagnasco, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper: “What leaves one aghast is the responsibility of those who think of fixing themselves when the house is still burning. It would be a mistake in the future not to make use of those [such as Monti] who have contributed in a rigorous and competent way to the credibility of our country.”
The uncertainty in Italy has been further fuelled by the fact that Berlusconi could once again run for Prime Minister, despite having largely contributed to Italy’s economic mess when in office. Matters have been made worse by the fact that the centre-left opposition Democratic Party, led by Pier Luigi Bersani, is divided between centrists and old fashioned left-wingers, many of them ex-communists, and should it win the next election might not be able to continue with the reform measures started by Monti.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that the anti-euro Five Star Movement led by comedian Beppe Grillo is doing quite well in the polls and at times is actually in second place after the Democratic Party. Can we imagine the consequences of a hung Parliament in Italy with Grillo’s party holding the balance of power?
On the other hand, Monti is now said to be considering contesting the election and could form some sort of alliance with centrist political groupings such as the UDC (Union of Christian and Centre Democrats) led by Pier Ferdinando Casini. Monti has been encouraged to run not only by centrist groups in Italy but also by the European People’s Party (EPP), in particular German Chancellor Angela Merkel. French President Francois Hollande, a Socialist, has also expressed his hope that Monti would contest the election.
In a somewhat surprising development, Berlusconi on Wednesday said that he was willing to drop his candidacy to lead Italy if Monti agreed to contest the election as the head of a broad centre-right coalition. “I see Monti serving as Prime Minister as a good thing for the country,” Berlusconi said, a day after criticising his policies as being “too German-centric”.
Monti has not yet decided whether he will contest the election, and nobody knows how serious Berlusconi’s offer was. The former Prime Minister often makes contradictory statements and over the past months has done just that over his plans to seek office once again. If Berlusconi was being sincere about wanting Monti to lead the centre-right in the election, why did he withdraw his party’s support for the Government?
There is a good chance, however, that Berlusconi will indeed run for office again – irrespective of Monti’s final decision – even though he was recently convicted for tax fraud and is facing charges for paying an underage prostitute for sex and for using his position as Prime Minister to secure her release from detention.
In a nutshell, Berlusconi is not good news for Italy and the centre-right should get rid of him. It is unlikely Berlusconi can win the election, and it is doubtful that the left-wing bloc that will probably defeat him has the credentials to fix the Italian economy.
The ideal situation, of course, would be for Berlusconi to exit the scene completely and be replaced by Monti as the head of a centre-right bloc. Together with other centrist groupings Monti would have a good chance of defeating the left. He would then be in an ideal situation to continue with his reforms with a solid majority backing him.
To expect Berlusconi to depart from politics is probably wishful thinking, but it is about time Italy says goodbye to the Berlusconi era.
Perhaps the editor of La Stampa, Mario Calabresi, summed it up best when he wrote: “It should be time for Italy to become a normal country, predictable and even boring. A country not to be ashamed of, that can succeed in making itself heard. For a year, we got close to it”.