The european dimension of political discourse in Italy. A ... - CIRCaP

THE EUROPEAN DIMENSION OF POLITICAL DISCOURSE IN ITALY.
sometimes proving rather silent on the problem of the role of a more integrated Europe in the
international order (table 3). Although most of the documents have been considered on the
whole as oriented to Identity Europeanism, the process of European integration was often
represented as a domestic convenience, proving beneficial for the modernization of the
country, and for this reason further integration was claimed. The impact of intra-party
tensions on the political discourse of the Dc made the question of the international role of
Europe somehow problematic, and for this reason EEC was often represented simply as a
matter of defence of domestic interests. By the end of the decade the party was silent on this
problem and the level of commitment of its political discourse to European integration was
rather low in all its aspects. Some hints of this general “defensive” discourses follow:
If Euratom is an advantage for Europe, it is even more so for Italy, a country poor in natural
resources. The Dc, aware of the benefits that Euratom can bring to Italy, not only gave its
unconditional support to the treaty, but led as well an action whose aim was to build the largest
majority possible supporting the treaty...
...the Western world, thanks to the Atlantic treaty, the WEU and to the first steps towards a
European Union, shows the need of an ever deeper integration among similar nations, in order to
defend their own existence and future 10 .
In the sixties, party attitudes towards European integration were more cohesive, even if no
unanimity can still be found, at least until the middle of the decade. More and more European
integration was seen in terms of domestic gains, there was not much reference to the
potential mission of the European entity in the world order. European integration was still
represented as serving goals of modernization, economic expansion and, in the Italian case,
of country-legitimisation in the international arena, where Italy would otherwise be a marginal
actor given its status of middle-range power and looser in the WWII. The Dc supported any
measure oriented to more economic and political integration. First of all, the Common Market
was acknowledged as a mechanism for domestic modernization and for the solution of
endemic domestic problems. In the sixties, the party already showed a vision of European
integration as a solution to inadequacies of the domestic system, and economic and political
constraints coming from Europe were expected to overcome the endogenous weakness of
Italy coming from a highly polarised and fragmented political system, institutional inefficiency
and domestic interests hostile to reforms. Moreover, the party felt that a united democratic
Europe would contain the domestic communist threat.
9 Some of the DC members writing in Prospettive founded later Stato Democratico, a review that
played an important role in promoting the political alliance with the Socialist party.
10 Excerpt from Cento Argomenti. Orientiamo gli elettori, programmatic platform of the Dc (1958).
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