In the last years, when asked about the political situation in Italy, the rise of the “new” far right, and the possibility of an authoritarian drift in Rome, I was confident that this won’t actually happen—mainly thanks to the strength of Italian civil society and the democratic institutions, but also thanks to the essential role played by the EU in Italian politics and vice versa. However, recent circumstances and the results of the EU election give reasons for raised concern.

In the following, I will highlight the deep political significance of two specific events in Italy, differentiate them from troubling but still contingent affairs, and, in the conclusion, place them in the context of the new strategies and realignments within the European institutions.

The two events on which I concentrate—we can call them the “Scurati” and the “Donno” cases—are relevant for the Italian current political course because of their spheres of interest: What happened to the writer Antonio Scurati concerns in primis the so-called civil society, while the event involving the member of parliament Leonardo Donno took place in one of the very physical centres of Italian democratic procedural politics, the Chamber of Deputies (Camera).

"Scurati" — a case of censorship

On 20 April, five days before Liberation Day, which commemorates liberation from the Nazi-Fascist occupation of Northern Italy in 1945, award-winning writer Scurati was scheduled to read a monologue about this civil celebration on a TV show hosted by one of the three channels of the Italian national broadcasting company RAI. However, TV host Serena Bortone informed viewers that she received a communication cancelling Scurati’s participation in the show without further explanations.

In the following days, an internal email was published which revealed that the cancellation happened due to RAI’s “editorial decisions”, i.e. a content-related decision, and not to Scurati’s excessive financial demands, as Prime Minister Meloni herself suggested in a Facebook post. This incident has immediately called for the worried attention of civil society and the opposition.

Challenging the cancellation, Bortone went ahead and read the monologue exposing its topic: a tribute to the Congressman Giacomo Matteotti and his political assassination by Mussolini’s henchmen in June 1924. It is worth noting that RAI’s management is appointed, through a complex system, by the Italian government and that its representatives neither take distance from their (neo-)fascist political roots nor embrace the anti-fascist values foundational to the Italian Constitution. Given the subject matter of the monologue, the author’s background and the political stance of the current government, it is difficult to ignore the impression that the cancellation appeared as an act of censorship.

"Donno" – a case of downplaying violence

On 12 June, a controversial government bill proposal on the “differentiated regional autonomy” (autonomia differenziata) was discussed by the Camera members, after its approval by the Senate. This proposal, strongly advocated by the Lega¹ for ages, aims to regulate the relationships between the central state and the regions on various matters, despite Italy being a unitary state. It represents a clear effort to introduce federalism in the country, which would very likely exacerbate the already (and historically) deep disadvantages of Southern Italy. In a symbolic protest against the proposal, representatives from the opposition waved Italian flags and the Camera member Donno (5 Stars Movement) tried to hand one over to the Lega Minister Roberto Calderoli. The attempt had already been stopped by the chamber clerks, when a group of other Camera members ran towards Donno, trying to punch him before he was escorted out by the clerks.

Even though this is not the first time that something politically appalling like this has happened, the extremely mild response of the government, the far-right backgrounds of the coalition members involved, and the official classification of the event as a fight rather than an aggression highlight a worrying acceptance of political violence that should not be underestimated.

In Italy: increasing political (un)culture

My optimism about the resilience of the Italian democracy was always based on the strength of civil society and of the institutions representing the Republic born after Mussolini’s dictatorship. However, it seems like both are currently endangered: in the “Scurati” case, civil society—embodied by a widely recognised public intellectual but mainly by TV as a free public service—has been silenced. In the “Donno” case the attack on an opposition member by members of the government coalition inflamed violence in parliament, the very core of democratic institutions.

These two incidents might have gone unnoticed if not for the current overall political mood in Italy. When scrutinised against the numerous changes to the programme schedule by the new, government-aligned RAI leadership, the defamation lawsuits filed by Meloni and by Minister Roccucci, respectively, against historian Luciano Canfora and philosopher Donatella Di Cesare, as well as the recent journalistic investigation revealing the proud ties to fascist and antisemitic rhetoric among members of the National Youth (Gioventù Nazionale), the youth organisation of Meloni’s Party Fratelli d’Italia – the Scurati and the Donno cases highlight a troubling trend: They suggest not only a normalisation but also an institutionalisation of a political (un)culture, deeply rooted in intolerance, racism, antisemitism, and violence, which cannot coexist with republican democratic values on the long run.

At the EU level: cooperating or not?

I already underlined how the interrelation between Italy and the EU was the third reassuring factor in considering the resilience of Italian democracy. Having sketched how the reliability of the other two factors has been weakened, we can now concentrate on what is happening between Italy and the EU after the EU election.

On 27 and 28 June the European Council met to discuss high level decisions for the upcoming new EU institutional cycle, including the candidate for European Commission President, the Strategic Agenda 2024-29, Ukraine, Middle East, migration, and other issues. On Wednesday, 26 June, Meloni gave a harsh speech against the proposed appointees for the so-called EU top jobs—presidency of the EU Commission, Council, and High Representative for Foreign Affairs—that emerged from the European Council’s informal meeting on 17 June.

According to Meloni, the proposals do not respect the results of the last EU election by still considering Macron’s liberal Renew Party—which actually has until 4 July to enlarge its numbers—and not her (hard-right) European Conservatives and Reformists group (ECR) as the third-largest group in parliament and thus eligible for one of the top EU positions. In her speech, Meloni underlined the relevance of her critical voice on EU matters and—when asked about her strategy for Italy in Europe—her will to “take the side of Italy” and of the “Italian national interests”, trying again to combine two different approaches: maintaining the nationalist stance of her domestic policy or at least domestic propaganda, while convincing her European colleagues of her credibility, trustworthiness, and strength in foreign and European policy.

It is against this background that on 28 June Meloni abstained on the vote for von der Leyen und voted no to Costa and Kallas, probably postponing what we can call her declaration of alliance to the vote on 18 July. By then, it will also be clarified with whom von der Leyen and her supporters are going to open further negotiations.

Beyond Meloni: becoming aware of structural shifts in political culture

Beyond Meloni’s strategy, however, the question remains: why is Italy being pushed out of the most relevant discussions on EU matters, discussions in which the country has always traditionally been included? Within the framework of a European Union, whose democratic functioning and endurance is already being tested, it would be reckless for the other EU states to dissociate Meloni from the aforementioned anti-democratic traits of her party and supporters without her making a real effort on this matter on the national level. Furthermore, it would be even more reckless to ignore that, as we have seen, these traits are not contingent, but structural, and thus far more dangerous. In this sense, the third pillar of the resilience of Italian democracy—its essential and mutual relationship with the EU—could also fade away.

However, the problem should not be reduced to Meloni alone: Generally speaking, to analyse the rise of a “new” Italian far-right and its position in the European framework, it is fundamental to reflect on how domestic policies, propaganda strategies, and events affect the European relationships. Both for this purpose and for a general analysis of the state of democracy, attention should also be given to the structural traits of the political culture that is being institutionalised.

More specifically, these are the issues with which Italy’s EU partners are confronted with since Meloni’s leadership: On the one side, what has always been respected and highly valued: Italy’s contribution to the EU as one of its founding members, with its tradition that goes back to the European ideals of Altiero Spinelli, Eugenio Colorni, and Ernesto Rossi and their Ventotene Manifesto—a plea for a federalist European republic written in 1941 by the three antifascists during their exile that became one of the theoretical milestones of the ideal of an united Europe—, but also with the participation in the EU project of eminent politicians like Romano Prodi or David Sassoli. On the other side, the abovesaid potentially anti-democratic traits of Meloni’s government cannot and should not be ignored if this project is not only to survive but also flourish. If the (non) choices of the current government do not allow for a clear positioning of Italy on the European scene, in one way or the other, Italy will have to be reduced to a passive or even heterodirected role on a stage that had always seen it among the leading players.  

Roberta Astolfi is a political philosopher and an expert in (the history of) Italian politics. Over the last years, she focused on populism and technocracy, while she currently concentrates on politics, aesthetics, and pop culture. She is a Postdoctoral Researcher at SCRIPTS and the Academic Coordinator of the SCRIPTS Research Unit Orders.

1 Lega was born in the Nineties as a federalist Party seeking the independence of Padania (a part of Northern Italy), under Matteo Salvini’s leadership. It currently pursues far right politics in matter of immigration and human and civil rights, as well as strong conservative politics in domestic matters.