In response to Matteo Renzi’s column

Sad­ly, we don’t share our pri­me minister’s enthu­sia­sm over our cur­rent poli­ti­cal situa­tion. Ita­ly isn’t any way nea­rer to a solu­tion to its social, eco­no­mi­cal and poli­ti­cal cri­sis. An ill-con­cei­ved con­sti­tu­tio­nal reform won’t be of any help, in this situa­tion. Taking away the elec­to­ral power from our citi­zens and giving it to our regio­nal repre­sen­ta­ti­ves is hard­ly a remar­ka­ble and posi­ti­ve chan­ge in our system. Giving more power to the exe­cu­ti­ve branch of our govern­ment was a pri­mal con­cern of no one other than our exe­cu­ti­ve branch itself. Our pri­me mini­ster has often been able to accom­plish all the impres­si­ve num­ber of reforms, as he con­stan­tly reminds us and eve­ryo­ne he talks to, at the expen­se of our legi­sla­ti­ve branch and the health of our demo­cra­cy. Basing all his plat­form on the assump­tion that “the­re is no alter­na­ti­ve” (some­thing the English peo­ple should be fami­liar with), and strip­ping voters of their right to choo­se their repre­sen­ta­ti­ves is not a good way, in our opi­nion, to pre­vent the rise of popu­li­sm in our coun­try. If peo­ple feel the­re isn’t any spa­ce for their voi­ce to be heard and for their needs to be addres­sed pro­per­ly, they will more easi­ly turn to tho­se who pro­vi­de them with a quick solu­tions and who claim to be their only champions.

If there’s some­thing all popu­lists have in com­mon is their ten­den­cy to repre­sent this myste­rious and unspe­ci­fied moloch named “Euro­pe” as the sour­ce of all our pro­blems, so we can’t help but feel con­cer­ned by the edgy way our Pri­me Mini­ster deals with the pro­blem our Union is facing.

There’s actual­ly some­thing that’s not wor­king in Euro­pe, as Mat­teo Ren­zi has writ­ten, but it’s the Euro­pean Coun­cil, the very insti­tu­tion he is part of. If Euro­pe has been “mis­sing in action”, as he poin­ted out, it’s becau­se he and his col­lea­gues are not wil­ling to work toge­ther to address the issue our con­ti­nent is facing. Their main con­cern is (and has always been) to pre­ser­ve the appro­val of the public opi­nion of their coun­tries, bla­ming “Euro­pe” eve­ry time their short sighted poli­tics don’t show any of the pro­mi­sed results.

Europe’s sta­tes govern­men­ts are to bla­me if we are still far from having a con­ti­nen­tal approach in our forei­gn affairs, in our immi­gra­tion and in our fiscal and finan­cial poli­cies, just to name the most pro­mi­nent pro­blems we should be dea­ling with as a Union. Using a gene­ric “Euro­pe” as a sca­pe­goat for the misgi­vings of the Euro­pean Coun­cil is only going to favour the rise of this popu­li­stic anti-Euro­pea­ni­sm wave.

So, when loo­king for an ene­my in Euro­pe, our pri­me mini­sters should pro­ba­bly take a look in the mirror.
Ita­ly should have its voi­ce heard, but we’d like to hear some serious and real­ly revo­lu­tio­na­ry word coming out from it, the next time our pri­me mini­ster makes it into the inter­na­tio­nal news.