On March 4, nervousness returns to the European stage. After the “French problem” has apparently been resolved with the victory of the Marching Movement of Emmanuel Macron, next Sunday, everything seems to start again with the confusion that is installed in the Italian general elections and the internal referendum in the German SPD, which aims to validate the grand governing coalition between Angela Merkel's CDU and Martin Schultz's SPD.
Let's look at some incidences of these two events:
"Fascism no more, racism no more"
Eight days before Italian elections, people shouted in the streets of several Italian cities “Fascism never again, racism never again”, in response to the crime of February 3, when a young Italian fascist shot at six Africans. The demonstration brought together XNUMX people in the People's Square in Rome, while far-right movements marched in cities across the country.
The Italian party political system is completely shattered. In a recent poll, the 5 Star Movement (M5S), by Luigi di Maio, reached 29% of voting intentions, the democratic party of Matteo Renzi, former prime minister, 22,8%, the Força Italia of Silvio Berlusconi 16,2, 12,1%, the Liga Norte by Matteo Salvini 7,3%, the Free and Equal Party by Pietro Grasso 5%, the Brothers of Italy movement by Giorgia Meloni 1,2% and the Popular Alternative by Beatrice Lorenzin XNUMX%.
In addition to these parties, there are other smaller neo-fascist movements that make Italy in 2018 an increasingly illiberal democracy.
Moreover, within the framework of the new electoral system, recently revised, no party will get more than 40% of the votes, which means that it will be necessary to negotiate a coalition to form a government.
Matteo Salvini of the Northern League is an eloquent example of this growing nationalist and populist movement. Instead of shouting against the capital Rome, he began to scream against Brussels and its immigration policy, promising that every illegal immigrant will be deported within 15 minutes, in a scenario where a third of the electorate can decide their vote based on immigration .
In the same sense, it is against the country's mosques, which promises to close if it receives the Italians' vote to govern.
It should be remembered that all this happens in a country with serious economic problems, where public debt amounts to 135% of GDP and where a serious problem of bank consolidation remains unresolved.
In other words, the populist wave is growing in Italy on the back of government instability and the ambiguities of European politics.
This political circumstance means very clearly that Italy will lose influence and will count for little for the next reforms that are needed at the level of the European Union.
Is GROKO good news?
GROKO means grand coalition. Five months have passed since the last elections and Germany is still without a government. After the failure of the “Jamaica Coalition”, a kind of contraption in the German way, everything suggests that the government solution of the last 12 years will be repeated.
For this to happen it is necessary that the SPD militants approve this coalition on March 4 in an internal referendum.
What, then, are the hypotheses at stake?
First, the internal referendum confirms the proposed coalition between the CDU and the SPD and we will have a majority government at the center, although, as is clearly visible, we have serious internal leadership problems in both the CDU and the SPD.
As a matter of fact, the latest episodes reveal that the political time of the two leaders is rapidly running out and no one would be surprised by the holding of early elections.
Indeed, Chancellor Merkel will not have an easy life, first because of the Brexit negotiations, then the discussion on the next multi-annual budget of the European Union, then the debate around Macron's European agenda, finally, the European elections 2019 and the renewal of the presidencies of the ECB and the European Commission.
Secondly, the internal referendum does not approve the coalition and the political parties intend to set a new date for general elections.
The European year 2018 will definitely be called into question, the Franco-German directory limited to management tasks and major decisions on European policy on hold while awaiting the 2019 elections for the European Parliament.
Thirdly, the internal referendum does not approve the coalition, but even so, the CDU/CSU decides to form a minority government based on the possible parliamentary support of the pro-European parties (the liberals, the greens and the social-democrats); however, there is no guarantee that this support will last and that, in this context, the main European dossiers will be resolved.
In all these hypotheses, what is at stake is the confrontation between a liberal democracy, which preserves the essential part of its European heritage, and an illiberal democracy that endangers that heritage and the future of the European continent.
The near future of European democracy
The Italian elections and the SPD's internal referendum, in addition to their relevance at the domestic level, are two more revealing signs of the political nervousness that exists within the large European family.
We speak of a nationalist and populist wave, but also of radical regionalisms, an erosion of liberal ideals, a lack of trust in non-majority European institutions, the crisis of the European social model and youth unemployment as a result of the impact of the revolution digital in the labor markets.
European democracy as we know it is at risk. The “illiberal risk” that is now also approaching the founding countries of the European project, after spreading to Eastern Europe and many Nordic countries.
The weakness of a coalition at the center in Germany is not good news for European politics. We recall here what has happened with the collapse of the centre-left European parties and ask what could happen to the German Social Democratic Party if tomorrow it is electorally punished and overtaken by the AfD (Alternative by Germany), just as it is today with the four Visegrad countries and with almost all the Nordic countries?
Imagine, for example, that a central coalition government led by Mrs Merkel decides to approve, within the framework of the European directory and the European agenda of President Macron, an increase in European budgetary transfers to finance the security and defense policy and the migration policy, and this even in the context of an environment marked by low economic growth.
How will German public opinion and voters react in the next elections, which may already be the next European elections in the first half of 2019?
This is, in fact, a very important moment for European democracy. With 15% less in the European budget due to the UK exit and with new European policies on the horizon, the debate on new own resources is the order of the day.
Is the moment of truth ever closer: “more Europe or less Europe”?
Whatever their political orientation, let us agree, however, that weakened governing coalitions do not help much. Let us hope that, as in France, they will all be replicas without major consequences for the future of European democracy. So let's wait for the next Sunday, March 4, 2018.
Author António Covas is a full professor at the University of Algarve and a PhD in European Affairs from the Free University of Brussels
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