For a few days last month it seemed likely that the Italian
centre-left would by now be looking back wistfully on two-and-a-half years in
power, amid recriminations over the events that led to the fall of Romano
Prodi’s ‘Olive Tree’ coalition government.
Prodi had resigned after his defeat in a parliamentary
confidence vote which followed the decision of the hard-line Marxists of
Rifondazione Comunista (Communist Refoundation), led by Fausto Bertinotti, not
to back the government’s budget.
After that, it appeared probable that the next step would be
the formation of a technocratic government to see Italy through the start of
the European single currency at the beginning of next year, with a general
election in spring or summer.
Instead, Massimo D’Alema, the leader of the centre-left
Democrats of the Left (DS), the main partner in Prodi’s Olive Tree coalition,
managed to put together a new centre-left coalition with himself at its head.
Ten years ago, when the DS was the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and D’Alema
one of its apparatchiks, the very prospect of his becoming prime minister would
have caused panic in the stock markets and in Washington. But the western
establishment welcomed the appointment of the first Italian prime minister from
a party that was once communist with a sigh of relief that chaos had been
averted. D’Alema’s new coalition shows every sign of being able to survive
until 2001.
The reason for the rapid turnaround in the centre-left’s
prospects last month is simple. Twenty-one of Rifondazione’s 34 deputies
abandoned Bertinotti to his own devices to set up a new parliamentary fraction,
under the label Comunisti Italiani (Italian Communists), offering support for a
coalition led by D’Alema. That gave the DS leader the easiest of tasks in
constructing a new and stable majority.
The defection from Rifondazione is not surprising. Most of
Bertinotti’s parliamentary comrades had had enough of his populist posturing –
he tried the same gambit last year, but was eventually forced to back down –
and were not prepared to accept a vote of party activists in favour of
withdrawing support for the government.
What is extraordinary, however, is the remarkable speed with
which the Rifondazione renegades found a berth in government with D’Alema and
his colleagues. They had until recently accused them of betraying the legacy of
the PCI, to which they all at one time belonged.
The result of last month’s events is a government that is
slightly to the left of Prodi’s. D’Alema has brought on board various
centrists, but he has also given one of the Rifondazione rebels, Oliviero
Diliberto, the crucial job of minister of justice. Silvio Berlusconi, the
leader of the main party of the right in parliament, Forza Italia, is not
pleased: he faces corruption charges and was hoping for lenience, which
Diliberto is unlikely to give.
Nevertheless, on economic policy – of particular importance
in the run-up to monetary union – D’Alema has pledged continuity. He has kept
the cautious technocrat Carlo Azeglio Ciampi as treasury minister and has
promised to keep to the Prodi government’s strict controls on public spending.
How the new government will relate to the rest of Europe
remains to be seen. There is no change in foreign minister, the centrist
Lamberto Dini, but the replacement of Prodi by D’Alema will probably make a
small difference. Prodi was the European leader closest to Tony Blair; D’Alema
is much more interested in developing a closer relationship with French
president Lionel Jospin and German chancellor Gerhard Schröder. And with EMU in
the offing, Rome has a better chance of entering into a menage a trois with Paris and Bonn than London has. Watch this
space.
