The lists and candidatures for the European elections are now closed. There are 42 symbols registered with the Ministry of the Interior, but not all of them will appear on the card due to the lack of the requirements established by laws and regulations. The fact remains that voting with the proportional system, as envisaged for the Strasbourg Parliament and despite the presence of a threshold, encourages the presentation of a greater number of parties. In some cases the formations (or the individual candidates within them) do not even have the hope of winning a seat: they participate to count themselves, perhaps with a view to future agreements or exchanges. In a certain sense, however, this same mechanism also applies to the most representative parties, eager to measure their strength on the field. To this end, the candidacies of leaders who, once elected, will never set foot in Strasbourg are played unscrupulously. The competition sees everyone against everyone, there are no coalition constraints and, indeed, often the fiercest competition is between allies (real or potential) at a national level. Also because in the European Parliament the relationships between the different political “families” do not coincide with those that determine the structures of individual governments, with a marked misalignment in our country.
Moreover, the temptation to use the European vote for internal party purposes is always very strong. Two relevant episodes that recently occurred in the Strasbourg chamber give an idea of the contortions and contradictions that this interweaving of levels produces. First of all, the vote on the new Stability Pact, approved with a very broad consensus but with the abstention or vote against (that of the M5S) of all Italian MEPs, both majority and opposition. And to think that at the Ecofin meeting in December our Minister of Economy participated in the agreement on the document. Institutionally less important, but politically very significant, was the vote on a text in which the EU and states were asked to urgently counter Russian interference, with special attention in view of the June elections. Also in this case the Yes vote achieved a very large majority, but the FdI, Lega and M5S delegations abstained, while those of the Pd, Forza Italia, Terzo Polo and the Verdi expressed themselves in favour.
There is a vein of anti-Europeanism that has never sincerely been abandoned which re-emerges cyclically for propaganda reasons and which is subtly wedging its way into the electoral campaign. A trend which, more or less openly, contrasts with that project of “a Europe united in diversity, strong, democratic, free, peaceful, prosperous and just” which we read in the declaration released in mid-March by Comece, the Commission of episcopal conferences of the European Union. Our parties and voters should at least remember one fact, which is taken from the Economic and Financial Document launched by the government in office a month ago: 90% of the growth of the Italian economy estimated for this year depends on the implementation of the Pnrr which, as perhaps too many have already forgotten, is the result of the extraordinary response that Europe was able to give to the tragedy of the pandemic and of which our country was by far the greatest beneficiary.
