CC BY
40
Marianna Napolitano
NATIONAL IMPACT IN THE EUROPEAN DECISION MAKING: THE ITALIAN CASE, AN EXAMPLE OF POLITICS WITHOUT POLICY?
6.2. NATIONAL IMPACT IN THE EUROPEAN DECISION MAKING:
THE ITALIAN CASE, AN EXAMPLE OF POLITICS WITHOUT POLICY?
POLITICAL SYSTEMS
Marianna Napolitano, student of «International Studies» (II level degree) at «L’Orientale» university in Italy. I get a bachelor degree in «International Relationship». Junior Researcher at «Osservatorio Russia» foundation.
Place of employment: «Osservatorio Russia» foundation
Study place: «International Studies» (II level degree) at «L’Orientale» university in Italy
napolitanomarianna@libero.it
Abstract: National and European political ambit are, for Italian citizens, a very important level of analysis in contemporary age. They have had the possibility, since the signature of Rome Treaty in 1957, to participate to a great process of integration, whose main aim was to increase social, economic and political development for European states. European integration process has been hard to build, moreover is hard, still today, recognize that exist a supranational system of decisions and rules and that we, as national citizens have to participate actively to this system. The aim of this paper is to analyze this aspect from the point of view of national political game, comparing European attitude towards some problems that are considered able to qualify the degree of democracy in a country, or in this case in an international organization, and the Italian political attitude towards this process. The traditional Europhilia that characterizes Italian attitude towards Europe is questioned, because it can allow us to understand the real dimension of failure when we talks about European integration process. It’s important analyze Italian political system features, conflict between parties, and legislative and executive institutions, to understand the real commitment of our country towards Europe. For this reason the Anglo- Saxon difference between "politics" and “policy" is considered the main reference to face current political debate about Europe, and to understand if current opinions about Europe are correct. Father founder lessons and grass society positions are considered two basic point of view in this paper, because of their ability to show the great difference between what Europe is as project, and what Europe is in reality. This essay wants to answer to different questions, but moreover it wants show what is Italian commitment towards European integration, and what are priorities in a country that today always blames European decisions. Do political opinions, journalistic debates represent a reliable source of information to understand European decision - making process? Moreover the paper underlines also the need of a new course for this international organization. It stress that Europe has to go beyond “stability’ idolatry" (Spinelli, 2013), and have to recognize the importance of social Europe, that is also to recognize what citizens want from Europe.
Keywords: European integration process, policy, politics, National Parliament, Current crisis Political parties, democracy
Introduction
“We can not stop when all around us the whole world is in movement”.
“It's through speech about Europe that political discourse can regain attraction power, participation and an effective role in our society. The political commitment that so many men and women of my generation placed at the center of their lives can be transmitted and can reborn only in the European dimension”(Italianieuropei.it, 2012).
Jean Monnet and Giorgio Napolitano' declarations about Europe, are, in my opinion, the best way to introduce the aim of this paper. It represent the past and the recent positions towards European Integration, and are the sign of what has been realized and what, we have still, to realize, to build a strong integration process.
2013 Italian elections are considered as a break towards the usual Europhilia that has characterized Italian process towards Europe. It's clear analyzing politicians electoral programmers, getting news from journals and web, listening civil society actors opinions. Europe is just a constraint, the so called “external constraint”, and often the exit from the Union has been considered as the only solutions to solve Italian economic problems (Dehousse,2013). My aim is to analyze the European integration process using an historical perspective, and using also two categories that, from my point of view, can help us to understand the real causes of the recent speeches. For this reason Italian political systems is the centre of my analysis. Is not just because I'm Italian and I'm a student of International relation, but it's also because, I think that Spain, Greece, Italy and German, are the point of starting to understand the European integration process and its success, or failure.
Thanks to my studies and thanks to the literature that I have read during these years, I have understand the value of Europe, and the father founding lessons importance. My opinion towards Italian political system is very critical; today I think that the same concept of democracy can be called into question talking about Italy, but this not happens. The reason of this research is also understand why. I think Italy is Europe, each member state build Europe day by day, and the only way to understand what is considered European failure is to analyze the system of the country that are European members: in this case Italy.
My scope is show that using the category of policy and politics, it's possible traced the Italian lack in the integration process. It's possible understand the great differences between the politicians declarations, above all during elections, and their real involvement towards European system of law. I want stress that this isn't a way to defend Europe from the recent critiques. I'm sure that Europe need a new course, that technical approaches to problems, above all, economic problems isn't a solutions and that it's important to afford the welfare issue that today seems disappeared from political discussion. However, I think also, that only an European awareness can help the transformation of Europe, and that this awareness has to leave domestic references. Political parties and civil society actors can realize a new Europe, but Italian “politica” are in need of a change.
I want underline that this analysis has been conducted through the study of academic books and papers, but also through the analysis of interviews and newspapers. I think that journalistic articles can help us to have an opinion about what happen in our country and in the world. Understand if we are reading a good article is as difficult as understand if
83
Социально-политические науки
12014
we are reading a good book. It's important search impartial information, and not having prejudice when we read an article. Moreover is important pass the linguistic borders, and try to consider opinions of writers and journalists of other country. This is a great opportunity that globalization give us, and I have to admit this aspect. Also for this reason, writing this paper I have used a lot of essays found on the web, beyond “paper books”.
1. Europeanization: the many faces of the concept
“All member-states are now enmeshed (...) in a European political-administrative system that turns national political officials into European decision-makers, national administrations into implementers of European decisions, and nationally organized interests into European lobbies” (Schmidt, 1997a in Giuliani 1999). Considering its diffusion, the concept of Europeanization isn't recent, but however it's a concept that only in the last years scholars, media and interest groups have used to qualify a new way to consider democracy, economy, culture and above all the political world. For this reason I want stress two aspects: the first related to a part of academic opinions, that underline the uselessness of this word; we use it referring to well-known concept, so that it's just a fashion word or a neologism, and it can't help us to improve our knowledge of the same concept. The latter, related to the difference, that in this case exist, between the use of a concept and its knowledge. We can use a lot of new words to qualify a concept but it's just a terminological sport (Giuliani, 2004).
However Europeanization is not a isolated event, but the process fits the worldwide development that is referred to by terms as “globalization” and “transnationalization”: these terms indicate the awareness that many of today's problems cannot be adequately dealt with at level of nation state (De Vries, 2010), and in the case of European integration they indicate also certainty that European institutions can improve the wealth and can solve the social issues better than national state.
Being so difficult explain what is Europe, I'll try to deal with the various ways today it is qualified to understand if exist other aspects that can help to understand the real nature of this organization. First of all it's important say that Europe is not a way to remove borders among countries, that is globalization, but it's a way to create borders, passing domestic frontiers (negative integration) and creating external frontiers (positive integration), so that a new identity birth, European “demos” (Della Porta,2006). It's so possible define the concept of Europeanization as “ a process of construction, diffusion and institutionalization of norms, beliefs, formal and informal rules, procedures, policy paradigms, styles, way of doing things” ( Quaglia, Radaelli, 2007). The trial and the governance issues related to this process, involve in every theory the legitimation of political power, the accountability standards, the citizen involvement issues (De Vries, 2010) and above all the truly democratic public sphere issue.
Moreover this analysis become more problematic because it is related to Italian integration. So it's important considering not only aspect connected with the particular form of organization that is Europe, but also aspects connected with the particular political history of this country. For this reason in my opinion, this relation can be understood, analyzing the politics and policy transformations happened in Italy (Giuliani, 2007), and also the transformation of opinions about European integration that characterized Italian and European history. This perspective can help to understand that today we can talk about democratic deficit not only referring to European integration, but also referring to Italian context, above all because is easy drew a parallel between the transformation from city
states to nation states and from nation states to transnational states: both re thinking the meaning of “democracy by making the notion of representation central” (Dahl, 1994 in De Vries, 2010).
2. National Parties and EU: a “politics” prospect
I would first of all underline that Italians have just one word for both politics and policy: politica. In other countries the words have two different meanings: “politics is something that occupies politicians at elections time, whereas policy is what they concentrate in on between”( The Economist, 2010). The term “politics” suggests that analysis will concentrate on the role of political parties in Italy and in Europe during and after election time, the need to stress the behavior differences, but also the role that national parliaments have in European decision making. This kind of research concerns not only people who participate to political elections, so that the winners and the opposition parties, but also the gross roots' and the media role. These elements are strictly linked in every countries, but they are particularly linked in Italy. In this way it's possible also understand the Italian compliance issue, that is differentially linked to “policy” aspect.
Despite Italian political system is considered as a particular case in the western democracies, because of his instability, I have to stress that “Europhilia” it's a concept that perfectly describes Italian attitudes towards European Integration. Literature and historic events show the certainly that Europe can support the idea of a most stability and peaceful future for our peninsula. However the European process origins was supported by few political leaders, and left parties denied the importance of the process because of cold war “borders”. European Union was perceived as a western instruments, as a NATO and American allies. The PCI rejected completely his hostility towards integration by the time of Altiero Spinelli election as an independent, on the list of PCI. By that moment, the main Italian left party moved towards acceptance of European values (Bindi, 2010). The further decade, from the early 1990, represented a new course for Italy and Europe; referring to this period scholars talk about “New Italy”. Transformations happened not only in domestic arena, that is the reform of the electoral law, of the party system and the governmental structure, new procedures between the executive and the parliament in the law making process and an extraordinary recovery that permitted to enter in the Monetary Union (Giuliani, 1999). Transformations were related also to European and domestic arena. During the previous years Europe was considered as an icon, so that the foreign policy was depoliticized, Europe was a nonissues and political involvement, referring to European integrations was the result of few leaders opinions and not of an written project, shortliving or enduring. Things changed in 1990, and in his first speech at Parliament, Silvio Berlusconi, declared that Italy would “play a leading role in European Union” (Bindi, 2010). In this case I want stress that from early 1990 to today, political class opinions about European project changed often; not only related to electoral successions but also related to political, economic and social transformations in the country. That is to say that Europe became the cause of unpopular measures, and it's appeared and disappeared in political speech, easily, because of the political moment that the country was living. As Jacque Delors, former President of European Commission, said “the problem with democracy in EU is not the insufficient incorporation of domestic governments into the Union's political systems, but the inadequate incorporation of the Union into the domestic politics of member society (Beetham and Lord, 1998, in De Vries, 2010).
So the isolation of Berlusconi first government relegated Italy to a losers role in European arena; his political attitude was
84
Marianna Napolitano
NATIONAL IMPACT IN THE EUROPEAN DECISION MAKING: THE ITALIAN CASE, AN EXAMPLE OF POLITICS WITHOUT POLICY?
a sort of assertiveness to United States and Europe. Europe became central with the election of centre-left Olive- tree coalition, particularly, Romano Prodi, focused on essential economic reforms to fulfill the EMU requirements. The kind of reforms alienated the Rifondazione Comunista and the Northern League positions, breaking the former consensus to the path. The new election of Silvio Berlusconi, in 2001, implied again tensions with European institutions because of Berlusconi “personal diplomacy” and in particular the assertive rapport with Bush government. Euro-skepticisms, was qualified as Euro.realism, and precedent multilateral relation with Europe was replaced by intensification of Italy- America rapport. Despite of this he put big pressure on ITG, during the European Council Italian presidency, because he wanted the constitutional treaty to be signed before the end of Italian semester. In this case I want stress the principal incidents that characterized the 2003 Italian presidency. First of all, the Martin Shulze' aggressive attack towards Italy and Berlusconi, during the plenary session of Parliament, because of his immigration policy, and his failure to end the conflict of interest between its own business and political activities. The second is related to failure of ITG, because of the lack of support both of French and Germany, and finally the Buttig-lione issue. Buttiglione, minister for EU polities during Berlusconi II government, accepted the post, but his aim was becoming European Commissioners. In this case Italians not took in right account the role of parliamentary; in fact when the new Commission President, Barroso, chose to give Buttiglione “Justice and Home Affairs”, parliament rejected this nomination. In fact the minister was known for his catholic stance and for his moral position against homosexuality (Bin-di, 2010). These considerations allow me to analyze in a different way what is the Italian “politica”, and I can stress the differences between politics and policy, because of they shown how bad politics can influence attempts to do good policy, and in Italian case, this relationship, as I'll show again later, is very frequent. The 2006 political agenda, with Prodi elections, was again focused on European issues. His electoral program was about “European foreign policy” (Per una politica estera europea), and about “Strategies of European development” ( Strategie per lo sviluppo dell'Europa) (Giulia-ni,2007). Again I have to underline that this was just an electoral program. So politics. The later political events can be considered very “sad” for the history of the country. Berlusconi new government, focused on domestic policy more than on European issue; Europe was once mentioned in his speeches to present his program: “Italy's role in Europe and in the world ... will serve as a compass for our work, as founders of the European project and as a great Mediterranean nation. We will be called upon to enhance relations between the two shores of our sea and to act as a pillar in the friendly relations between Europe and the United States of America” (Bindi, 2010). Monti and Letta technical governments, are instead a proof of trust towards European policy, but today they have also to be considered as a proof of depoliticized democracy and of legitimacy crises.
European integration involved also a transformation of national parties, that has shown different attitudes dealing with European challenges, colluding or neglecting issues that are or less under their control. It's possible study political parties attitude referring to four main models: A) Geography Model, B) Institutional Model, C) Partisan Model, D) Genetic Model. These models can be analyzed together with different strategies adopted during electoral competition, that is voteseeking strategy, coalition strategies, aim to maximize effect on public policy and cohesion seeking strategy. Finally these
strategies change with political goals. So it's important considering if Europe and his outcomes are in that moment positive or negative for that group and if they can decided to politicize them (Political science series, Vienna, 2012). National parties found their attitudes towards Europe considering population's enthusiasm (Giuliani, 1999), and this is true particularly in Italy, that, as founder member and as country with a too fragmentized party system, is considered as a relevant case of analysis. Moreover Italian different electoral formulas, both majoritarian and proportional, parties splits, electoral coalition but different parliamentary group, can demonstrate why we haven't a cohesive system party. This aspect help to explain the governmental strength and why Europe is more relevant during electoral debate. Particularly this happened in oppositions party because of they are in need of a way to “damage” governmental legitimacy, and only domestic issues can help them in this case. Governmental parties instead, stress their involvement in European policy realization. EMU issue, in this case, played, and today plays, a key role. It is related to ethno regionalists parties position, and to Southern Italy conditions. If Umberto Bossi and Northern league has considered euro as a good thing, only if it signs a border between Padania and the “others”, the unique currency has been considered as a way to make worse its competence weakness. “[...] is necessary to save Southern Italy and to face the unemployment problem. Well, the only way to achieve this objective is to make a consensual split-up. In Padania we will use the Euro as currency, because we will use the European currency, while our fellow European citizens of Southern Italy will use the European single currency only some years latter: before they will have to improve their economic, productive and financial system. (Political science series, Vienna, 2012). Finally I would underline that opposition parties knowledge about European issue isn't so deep as governmental. To vote a law and then reject it at home, consequentially would be very difficult. For this reason government have in general a loyalty role and opposition party are critic towards Europe.
This aspect implies the national parliament role analysis in Europe, their evolution and the need of a major accountability of national ministers in European arena, as a way to improve European legitimacy and democracy. The growing involvement of National Parliaments in EU has passed through three phases: until 1980s, involvement was very limited, after the Single European Act in 1987, they started to be interested in European affairs and to set-up special committees, and in 1992s, following the Maastricht treaty, their involvement become a response to “democratic deficit in EU” (Bindi, 2010). Three different involvement mechanisms are related to these phase: the historic Assize, COSAC and Conventions. The Assize conference held in the days of November 1990, assembled national and EP members, his results were not so important and moreover very similar to EP positions, so that a further Assize never been repeated. The Conference of Community and European Affairs Committees of Parliaments of the European Union (usually known by its French acronym COSAC), is an experiment most important. First convened in 1989, it became a Bi-annual event, hosted by country who held European presidency. Members from national parliament committees are national participants, it's a forum, and a event to intensify the exchange of information and to discuss issues of common interest (Bengtson, 2003). Initially however, committees was considered in Italy as a foreign policy instruments, so that as a matter for government. For this reason Chamber of Deputy and Senate did not establish standing committees for European Affairs Committees. In 1968
85
Социально-политические науки
12014
established an ad hoc committees to deal with European affairs the Giunta per gli affari della Comunita Europee, and in 1987, 1989 the Parliament introduce two laws to improve the framework for domestic decision making on EU affairs: Fabbri law and La Pergola law. The main aim was that national parliament came to see their involvement in European affairs as a temporary extensions of their traditional functions at national level. Chamber of Deputy and Senate revised significantly their rules of procedures between 1998 and 2003. In this way the circulation of information was improved, also related to important event as COSAC (Bindi, 2010). Another aspect that I want underline, related to Italian involvement, concerns committees characteristics, in particular differences based on what level of scrutiny reserve is held. Scrutiny reserve is a mechanism that don't allow to ministers in Council of Ministers to be agreed on a legislations if the scrutiny committee have not be consulted on the legislation in question. Italy falls into the category of country that haven't this power. In fact a lot of scholars have stressed that this is a proof of the secondary role played by Parliament in Italian foreign policy. Executive is obliged to consult Parliament, but this kind of information is very inadequately and very infrequent (Bengtson, 2003). The Stucchi-Buttiglione law, addresses this unresolved issues, but the problem at moment don't came to a solution, because of to improve parliament scrutiny power, Deputy chamber and senate, have to adopt specific own procedural rules, and this is not easy (Bindi, 2010). The treaty on European Union and on the Functioning of the European Union provide for important change in national parliament involvement in EU decision-making. First of all, it's important underline that, for the first time, national Parliaments are mentioned and a specific role is assigned them in the body of a Treaty text. They are considered as a way to ensure compliance and good functioning of the EU (Jans, Peiadrafita,
2009) .
An important point of view to analyze National Parliament and EP relationship is the set of strategies in participating to European confront. Talking about European Union is talking about a dual legitimate system, that is a system where voters hold political elite accountable for EU policy making through the supranational channel, i.e EU election, as well as intergovernmental channel, i.e NP elections. These aspects increase the level of representation, accountability and authorization at national level, but moreover if national elections are not fought on European affairs, there isn't guarantee that European decisions reflect majority opinions, the same happens with referendum. For this reason some European decisions are considered apolitical and voters, don't support the transfer of such power to European institutions (De Vries,
2010) . These kind of opinions need to be deepen, involving not only political aspects but also aspects related to media and civil society actors role. It's possible talk about this issue from many point of views, because it's not just a matter of legitimateness, knowledge, linguistic skill and cultural identification. Mario Monti, in a book written with Sylvie Goulard, talked about the need to create Europe and to create European demos. We know that today the causes that make the need of European integration important, aren't valid, but this isn't a reason to stop doing Europe better than it is now (Monti, Goulard, 2012). Today it's possible referring to “public democracy” as a democracy where media play an important role and can help creating opinions about the integration process. They have to give pluralistic information, not related only to domestic events, to national politicians opinions, but allowing actors to express a critical sense towards what happen in Europe, in Italy and also in other countries. The bad use of this means of communication is a big problem for
every democracy, as is the information partiality. From this point of view, internet isn't a good example, they increase the quantity of information but not their quality, it's an important means for cultured people, but it can't help increasing participation (Della Porta, Caiani, 2006). Moreover the problem concerns linguistic skills; in my opinion it's not possible talk about a global word and use only information from own journalistic declarations, because they are in Italian, so easier to understand. At the end of European Council each politician explains what is happened to his country media, using own language, but in this case trace an impartial information it's impossible (Monti, Goulard, 2012). The higher level of institutional sources by journalistic, cover supranational issues, and they also play a role in limiting civil society presence in these debates. Looking at these discourses, seems that they strengthen those who are yet strong at national level, and marginalize the weak. The ability of collective bodies to access supranational levels, in fact depend upon their “regulative, jurisdictional and material resources”, and “European integrations distributed these opportunity to access to extraterritorial resource in a differential and unequal way” (Bartoli-ni, 2002, in Della Porta, Caiani, 2006). To conclude there is, in my opinion, the need to build a system, that involves the creation of a level of common identity and citizenship, able to sustain the principle of social sharing of the risks. There is the need of a moral basis, not only in European institutions but first of all in national arena (Della Porta, Caiani, 2006). This is confirmed by the high level of discussions about European issues in the last years in Italy, it's not a matter of exist, loyalty or strategies, that, as I have said, exist, is a matter of Europeanization and politicization of speech. So that awareness. From my point of view it's possible doing this focusing first of all our attention, as citizens, on the policy issue, not only on the politics. Italian politica indicate a beautiful word, it remember the Aristotle politike episteme, but today in Italy it's just memory (Corriere Della Sera, 2013). Italy need to pass the “age of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, in which the victory of one faction over another is what counts” (The Economist, 2013), and need to consider what is important for citizens.
3. National institutions and EU: a “policy” prospect
“Policy” issue involves many aspects connected to Italian legislative and executive system features. It's related to the compliance issue and to top-down relationship between the country and European Union, and involves the great differences that have existed, and today exist, between national electoral commitment, and the real responsibility towards European integration. First of all this issue can help to understand how the recent problems with European Union norms are related to supranational context and how they are related to Italian political system. It's important to stress, that talking about policy, that is talking about what politicians “have to do”, what kind of reforms they have to achieve, is talking about high and low politics. The difference was introduced by Stanley Hoffmann, in 1969 he talked about low politics and high politics in EU policy process, and these terms are now commonly used by scholars. “Low politics refers to “technical” negotiations—that is, day-to-day negotiations about EC law; high politics refers to negotiations about EU constitutive and “grand” policies, such as treaties, foreign policy, and security” (Bindi, 2010). In this way it's possible analyze the procedures adopted by Italy in order to cope with EU and to features of the main reforms.
Compared to that of other countries, Italy is known for its delayed EU policy making, both in ascending and descending phase. A way to front this problem and to improve its cooperation with Europe was the introduction of the Community Law (Legge Comunitaria) (Giuliani,1999). The main aim of this law
86
Marianna Napolitano
NATIONAL IMPACT IN THE EUROPEAN DECISION MAKING: THE ITALIAN CASE, AN EXAMPLE OF POLITICS WITHOUT POLICY?
was solve the problem of the compliance to European system, and to front once a year the need of the adaptation to European legislative system. However, I want underline that this law, became during the years not a solution but a problem of the relationship between Italian and European legislation. It creates, in effect, a condition where different kind of EU directives are adopted together, so it's not possible pay attention to the different political themes or to their different political importance. Moreover it justified the governmental proxy, and not having a clear time limit, a lot of directives are not adopted or are adopted in a week, thanks to swift procedures. Pass the “emergency” situation of 1980s, this law now, can't be considered as a good mean to help Italian legislative system to adopt the main European reforms (Giuliani, 2007). Related to this problem, Fabbri and La Pergola law are very important. Fabbri law, adopted in 1987, created in Presidency office, a Department for the coordination of European policy and created some solutions to avoid Italian legislative process delay in the adaptation of Community law. La Pergola law, that created the Annual Community Law, as I have just said, was initially a good solution, but later, it lost his efficacy. So three law projects was presented to the Parliament, to change his characterizes. in 2005 a new law was adopted. It created a new body, a Committee for European affairs, and it strengthened the relationship with national parliaments, but today, the results can't be considered great (Giuliani,2007). The problem of the adaptation to European law involves a lot of different aspects; not only related to the lack of our political systems, but also related to the role of Italy in the International Community. It's a matter of costs and it's a matter of credibility. This aspect can be analyzed considering the consequences of the delayed adaptation of directives. Recently Italy slowed down the implementation of directive, the percentage increased between 2007 and 2009. It can be considered by the recourses of European Court of Justice, and also by the final decisions of this body about the Italian infringement procedures. Other data are particularly serious; the problem is not only the implementation of directive, but also the outright failure to adopt specific measures (Bindi, 2010) and the infractions of treaties, European directive and regulations. The literature about compliance is now very far from the solutions of this problem. It's a matter related to the European integration process, but it's also related to domestic system, to their involvement and characterizes of laws and reforms. It's not clear, where and how is important intervene, but it's clear, from my point of view, that this is first of all an Italian problem. It's a priority problem. I think that it's a problem of responsibility, and the differences between our country and other European countries are in this case a proof.
The most significance turn, produced by European membership has been the joining to Euro-zone. the Economic and Monetary Union, was intended to be a mean to achieve the “free movement of capital, coordinate economic policies , establish a fixed parity between the national currencies and ultimately to institute a single currency” (Bindi, 2010). The path towards EMU imposed Italy a series of hard choices, related to macro-economic, welfare and pensions field. They concerned also industrial policy, health, liberalization and privatization measures and was a catalyst of government strategies, flexibility and centralization decisions (Giuliani, 1999). In fact the Maastricht treaty required a compliance with a series of criteria for the access to monetary union. This was: “1) the public deficit should not exceed 3 percent of GDP; (2) the public debt should not exceed 60 percent of GDP; (3) the interest rate should not be greater than 1.5 percent above the average of the three member states with the
lowest levels of inflation; (4) the average interest rate paid on government debt should be below the average of the same three countries, plus 2 percent; and (5) the candidate country must have been a member of the European Monetary System, the EMS, for at least two years without any unilateral devaluations” (Bindi, 2010). For Italy, adopt these kind of measure was not easy, because of his bad economic situation, and the incapacity of an instable political systems to front the problems related to this constraints. The join to EMU was the result of a series of political meetings and of series of economic and political signals that Italy want respect Maastricht criteria. Some examples are the introduction of the Eurotax and the gradual reduction of the inflation. Finally, Italy joined to EMU in 1998, (Bindi, 2010). The event was considered very positive from a great part of political elites, from left and from right, as Romani Prodi, who always considered the Monetary Union as a great opportunity for the country and also politician Silvio Berlusconi, who was very proud of Italian participation to euro and to the European integrations. Today in his speeches, euro is considered as the evil of Europe, but in this policy analysis, this isn't so important (Travaglio, 2013).
I want stress the difficulties faced by Italy to respect the constraints of Growth and Stability Pact. This is important, not only from an historical prospective, but also to understand the recent euro-skepticism and the recent opinions about the exit from the euro. Italy faced problems, particularly in meeting the 3% ceiling in budget deficit. Berlusconi first attempt was to ignore this external constraints, later his Treasury minister, Giulio Tremonti, presented a savage package and persuade Euro.Zone Ministers not to accept the Commission's propose for an “excessive deficit early warning” against Italy. Prodi pledged to address the budget imbalance, and made several direct references to the need of respect the Growth and Stability Path, that had been also reformed during that years. So the 2007 Finance Bill was very drastic. It's also important stress that EMU has imposed competitiveness problems but Italian answer, hasn't been adaptation or change, but disengagement and neglect (Quaglia, Radaelli, 2007). For this reason, it's not easy talking about, Italian politicians positions towards Stability and Growth Path as policy. Important transformations, however occurred with technical Monti and Letta government, and with Fiscal Compact agreement. Financial and economic constraints, were considered in this case very important, as was the balanced- budget rules. European institutions have considered Monti and Letta, as ideal politicians to help Italy to solve its fiscal deficit. During recent economic crisis, this kind of measures, are judged pro-cyclical, so not a solution for economic recovery. Monti' idea was about a social market economy, that's a way to link social and fiscal constraints, but today, in Italy unemployment increases and salaries fall. Europe is considered the main responsible for this situation, and the recent Financial law can be considered again as a proof.
Immigration, climate-change and agricultural policies, are as important as EMU joining, to analyze European Italian policy. A first Europe-wide strategy to combat climate change has been set in the fourth “Climate Change Package” known as 20-20-20. It provided a framework to approach the global warming problem, in the field of energy policy, and provides an interesting example to analyze Italian case. In the package there were five measures: a proposal for revising the greenhouse gas emission quotas, a proposal for reducing national targets to reduce the emissions of pollutants in non EMS (Emission Trading System) sectors, a proposal for a directive on renewable energy sources setting binding national targets on every member state for energy quotas produced from
87
Социально-политические науки
12014
renewable sources, a proposal for a directive to encourage the spread of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies, and last a proposal for a regulation to reduce the CO2 emissions from motor-powered passenger vehicles. Referring Italy, the main aim was to increase the quotas of energy produced from the renewable sources and to support the reduction of CO” emissions. Italian politicians considered, the measures too severe for the country, in particular thinking to the quotas of 17% in CO” emissions. The strategy was, also in this case, to preserve national interests and to try balancing the achieve of these goals, and the ensure of European competitiveness. Despite of this, I want underline, that Italy always tried to respect the European measures in the environmental field, and always shown a great determination reaching European goals, and bringing home a compromise to promote national interest. This is demonstrated by the number of directive implemented and by change in the account of renewable energy according to national target (Bindi, 2010). As the EMU case, it's important to stress, that Italy case is also a specific case. I have just said that in the country was a strong consensus for higher environmental standard and that this consensus was stronger than other countries, such as Spain or Portugal. Nevertheless Italy's performance both in transposing directives and in the light of infringements and convictions was not better than Spain and Portugal. Moreover, in the case of environmental policies, transposing directives doesn't mean automatically enforcement, but it's also important to solve problems, that can be inscribed to systematic and administrative deficiencies. The interaction of different representative institutions at different level of political negotiation, both among national and EU, and actors in civil society, could be considered the best mains for the building of more appropriate incentives for the correct implementation of common policies. It may lead to an improvement in the quality of EU governance and can improve the awareness of the need of more democratic control, above all, referring to globalization and its sense of general noresponsibility (Torrres, 2003).
At the end of this analysis, I want briefly talk about other issue that in my opinion are considerable to judge Italian and European policy. This is also related to current news, about Italian media every day talk. I want begin with immigration policy. Each of us, I think, can remember photos, videos, declarations, related to Lampedusa migrant shipwreck, or Lampedusa migrant center. Each of us can remember the “political schizophrenia” came after these events. In my opinion this is awful and immoral. One of the most important Italian law about immigration is the Bossi Fini law, passed by Parliament in 2002. The main of this law was to regulate the legal migration flows. It had three main goals: to link the residence permits to employment permits, favoring tempo ring jobs and discouraging permanent settlement and to combat legal entry. This law hasn't any link with European immigration policy (Quaglia, Radaelli, 2007 ). Italian media and politicians talk about the need of more Europe, because of Italy alone can't front the increased number of migrants that every month arrive in the peninsula. It's right, but it's right that Italy adapt her legislation to ensure human conditions to migrants. This remember me Habermas reflections about dignity of human being. Mediterranean sea is a crossroads of civilization, and this tragedies are unjustified. It's important that institutions decide to organize a legislative framework to ensure life migrants in every country. In Italy, in this moment, this framework don't exist, and only social and humanitarian organizations deal with migration issue, using a very limited budget. Ius soli and ius culture are great words, but institutions have to create the opportunity for every human being to
live in a good conditions where he wants, on the basis of the laws of that country (L'Indro, 2014). Italy are also in need of a logical management of European Structural Founds and of Common Agriculture Policy. Europlanning, is a good means to provide European regions with money, that they can use to improve their economic performance and to ensure development. The next planning is considered as balance of fiscal constraints, but the great part of these found are not used, or are used in an incorrect way. Perhaps, civil society actors need further incentives or information, but I think that it's right to search a way to appraise this European policy, and to organize, also in a better way agricultural condition. I refer to farmers, that as category suffer for the consequences of crisis and global integration, not to big agricultural firms.
Considering the relationship between Italy and Europe, this paper shows that Italy's difficulties “had to do with four main variables: the instability of its governments; the lack of government cohesion; the government's inability to implement a learning process; and above all the country's political culture” (Bindi, 2010), Italy has been portrayed as a system dominated by pro- European attitudes in major parties, but this attitude don't 'alter Italian policy towards Europe (Quaglia, Ra-daelli,2007). It's important stress that exists a distinction between parliament and executive attitude, during the years of European integration. Any independent observer, looking to Italian parliament's role in EU' affairs, should be impressed by the improvements of the last ten years. This is related to scrutiny system and to the creation of an interdepartmental EU coordination body. Despite this, there are things that is important improve, first of all the process of law implementation, and the depth analysis of European issues, because in this case opinions are too generic. Also executive attitude towards Europe can be considered a sign that executive's resistance towards Europeanization process has been passed. CIACE creation is a perfect example, but another problem to afford is the involvement of Italian regions in European system, and also interest group involvement, that at moment can't present themselves as a homogeneous group. It's possible say that today “EU and Italian system are no longer two separate legal systems but rather two closely interconnected system of governance (Bindi, 2010). It's a great result, considering also the legitimacy issue that European integration process involved, but it seems that it's just possible talk about coordination and not about responsibilities. Europe is a geographical place that involves national interests, these interests can be related to a top-down procedure, but it's important not only increase the competence of European policy ministers and foreign affairs ministers, but also super vision responsibilities of European policies department. Moreover, it's also important to stop the phase of the so called emergency directive (Giuliani,2007). In my opinion this is the reasons, because of when Andrew Moravcsik taks about “high politics” as “convergence of domestic policy preferences”, Italy is excluded from the group of the leading countries that count. Italy isn't part of any stable alliance, Italian partners in fact aren't considered to be strategic allies, and politicians are in general considered too generalists rather specialists. There isn't stable cooperation between the countries of southern Europe, nevertheless the closeness of their interests, often, leads them to a substantial convergence on sect oral issues. A member state can be successful in European negotiations if, has properly defined goals and credible players. At moment this can be considered the Italian case, where the “par-rochialism”, that's the Italian politicians tendency to give priority to local over national, European and international issues. A famous Italian politician once said:” Why should I bother go to Strasburg (to the plenary session of European Parliament) if
88
Marianna Napolitano
NATIONAL IMPACT IN THE EUROPEAN DECISION MAKING: THE ITALIAN CASE, AN EXAMPLE OF POLITICS WITHOUT POLICY?
no one even takes any notice of me?” (Bindi, 2010). This declarations is the proof that the run to Bruxeless for Italy is perhaps too long, is the proof that the bad policy is just the result of the bad politics, and that change Europe is possible if we change our political systems and also our way to judge our political systems. It's evident that “the adjustments to European pressures and policy model have been hereto realized without any reform of the institutional framework” (Giuliani, 1999). In my opinion this have to be the starting point.
Conclusions
In these pages I have analyzed the rapport between European Union and Italy, using the categories of policy and politics. In this way I have underline the negative and the positive aspects and the impact that can be traced in the Italian integration process, and the impact that national political system have on it. At the end of this paper I would return on Italy and Europe relationship, analyzing not only the historical features, but focusing my attention on recent speeches and opinions. I have said that Italian media, every day, talk about Europe, I have criticized them, but that discuss about Europe is discuss about Italy, today is a fact. I want understand now “what Italy wants from Europe, what Europe wants from Italy, but also what Italians want from Europe”.
Recent economic issues recall the issue about the kind of organization that is European organization, and the kind of process that can be considered the best for the European integration. These issues involved the founding father', but today involved the idea about the European reforms. The foreign and defense policy are the main aim of this process of integration, but they can be still considered as an “utopia”. The discussions about this aim are a positive sign, they broke the traditional indifference, and demonstrate the will to pass the nation states power (Giuliani, 2004). More important are the economic issue and the severe fiscal policy that today have created the two-speed Europe. Monti have talked about the Eurobond project, that could “stabilize financial markets in the short-terms and improve the euro area economic framework in the medium terms, thanks to enhanced fiscal discipline and risk-sharing” (Cencing,2012). It's a good proposal, bur it involves the creation of a Financial and Bank Union, that in this moment doesn't exist in Europe. For this reason today German economy is considered so solid, and Italy, Spain, Greece, are weak countries. Countries that talked about the exit from the euro. This is unthinkable in a country as USA, but Europe isn't a federation.
Parties and civil society actors role represent another problem. “In other European countries we see the opposite approach being adopted: as a rule, when it comes to international appointments, governments search for their best national candidate for a post, regardless of political affiliation” (Bindi,2010). The loyalty's systems that still characterize Italy have blocked the Europeanization of political parties. We are in need of European parties, that are focused on European issues, that consider other countries' policy as a way to improve their political results, and that can pass the traditional link with interest groups interest. They can be socialist, liberal or people's party, but they have to be European party (Italia-ni.europei.it, 2014). For this reason Barbara Spinalli's proposal to support Alexis Tsipras candidature during the next European Parliament Elections, can be considered very interesting . Alexis Tsipras has presented himself as a candidate of a civic list, that support the idea of political union in Europe, first of all through the creation of an European federation. Now Europe is synonymous of austerity, so it's important thinking about the union of civil society to build the Europe that can represent ourselves. Europe isn't just peace
and no wars from a military prospective. Welfare and social justice are peace (Little, 2013), and only an aware opinion can help to realize this kind of transformations. It's important underline the “value added” of Europe, not only from a economic perspective, but considering the citizen's right. Rodota talking about the next elections, try to understand if thinking to a unique European health system could be a way to get close Europe and society (Insiemeperconoscere.it, 2012). Solidarity has to be the key word to think Europe. It's could be considered a new way to explain Europe, and a good way to reach great goal as, in past happened with founding father. It could also be a way to pass the linguistic, cultural borders, that still today limit the integration process. “So, where is the point of no return? The point of no return is just political. It's when political struggle become European. Is when men and parties will fight for European power” (Italianieuropei.it, 2012).
Reference list:
1. Allegri, S., Immigrazione tra politica e studio, L'Indro, 2014
2. Bartolini, S., Lo stato nazionale e l'integrazione europea: un'agenda di ricerca, Quaderni di Scienza Politica 9(3): 397-414
3. Bengtson, C., National Parliaments in European decision making. A real prospect or a wishful thinking? The Federal Trust for Education and Research, 2006
3. Bindi, F., Why does Italy punch so far below its weight in the European Union?, The Economist, 2010
4. Bindi, F., Europeanization and Italy, Federiga Bindi and Irina Angelescu, editors, Frontiers of Europe, 2011
5. Cencing, E., Italy's economy in the euro zone crisis and Monti's reform agenda, Working paper, Berlin, 2012
6. Dehousse, R., Negative Europeanization: European Issues in the 2013 Italian Elections, 2013
7. Della Porta, D., Caiani, M., The Europeanization of Public-Discourse in Italy. A Top-Down Process?, SAGE Publications London, Thousand Oaks CA, 2006
8. Della Porta, D., Caiani, M., Quale Europa?, Europeizza-zione, identita e conflitti, 2006
9. De Vries, C., E., Walczak, A., Rosema, M., Dual Legitimation in the European Union: The Impact of European Integration Attitudes in National and European Elections, 2010
10. Giuliani, M., Europeanization and Italy, 1999
11. Giuliani, M., Europeizzazione come istituzionalizzazione: questioni definitorie e di metodo, Urge Working Paper, 2004
12. Giuliani, M., Fra politics e policy: annotazioni sulla politica europea dell'Italia, Rivista Italiana di Politiche Pubbliche, 2007
13. Giuliani, M., Politiche comunitarie e recepimento italiano. Dov'e il problema?, Quaderni di scienza politica, 2007
14. Goulard, S., Monti, M., La democrazia in Europa, Rizzoli, 2012
15. Jans, T., Piedrafita, S., The role of National Parliaments in European decision making, Eipascope, 2009
16. Little, S., Rodota: no al referendumsull'euro. L'Italia creda nell'UE, rivista di affari europei, Europae, 2014
17. Napolitano, G., Unione politica e Europeizzazione della politica, Italianieeuropei.it, 2012
18. Political science series, National Parliaments, Electorates and EU Affairs, Edited by Katrin Auel and Tapio Raunio, Vienna, 2012
19. Quaglia, L., Radaelli, C., M., Italian politics and the European Union: a tale of two research designs, 2007
20. Taino, D., La politic ache schiaccia le politiche, Corriere della Sera, 2013
21. Torres, F., How Efficient is Joint Decision-Making in the EU? Environmental Policies and the Co-Decision Procedure, Intereconomics, 2003
22. Travaglio, M., Quando Berlusconi brindava all'euro, L'Espresso, 2013, in Micromega.it
23. Barbara Spinelli: “Con Tsipras contro l'Europa dell'austerita, www.Avgi.gr, in Micromega.it
89
