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N. CONTI / L. VERZICHELLI During the nineties, we registered important changes, that is to say, more diverse preferences about the future of European integration, and more pronounced judgements about costs and benefits of the process: the documents we have coded seem to indicate that the distribution of the pro/anti-European points of view among the Italian parties is much more scattered than what recent expert surveys report (see, for instance, Ray 1999). Moreover, even those parties maintaining a broad pro-European attitude tend now to develop a more multifaceted view of the European integration process, where the reflection on specific policy aspects (from EMU to enlargement, from social cohesion to CAP) is often controversial. An example of such attitude resides in Forza Italia’ discourse: one can easily notice here the co-existence of general appeals to save the “heritage” of the “champions” of Italian pro-Europeanism, but also the absence of concrete stances on the current problems of the European integration process, and even some specific criticisms to a “Brusselscentred” idea of Europe raised by important leaders of the largest Italian party in contemporary times. Nonetheless, we think that the idea of a “critical change” in the party elite visions of Europe, after Mastricht and after the introduction of a mixed-majoritarian electoral system, should not be overestimated. At the end, the metaphor of the train to be caught, quite diffuse within all the elite appeals during the last decade, is something in the middle between two classical modes of dealing with Europe: the idea of keeping a minor but continuous role in Europe, in order to develop the political and economic capabilities of a problematic capitalist democracy (somebody defines it a sort of Calimero syndrom), and the need to use supranational politics to defend the national interest - another recurrent argument, strongly evoked during the “socialist era” of Bettino Craxi. The cross-road marked by the explosion of the party system occurred in the nineties, simultaneously with the beginning of the “European acceleration”, created room for a significant change within party positions. Nevertheless, this change is not the fruit of a sudden turning point within the political discourse. On the contrary, it can be conceived as another process of adaptation to some new constraints (or maybe a liberation from the old ones). In the end, most politicians remain involved in a purely “domestic” discourse and the formation discourse on European issues remains, anyway, a very difficult test for the Italian parties. Therefore, our modest conclusion here is the following: the cultural legacies have an impact on Italian party elites, despite the widespread aspiration to be “European” and to have a prominent role in the problem-solving processes at the European level. On the other hand, 40
THE EUROPEAN DIMENSION OF POLITICAL DISCOURSE IN ITALY. the party system revolution and the formation of two alternative “poles” has somehow helped the growth of different positions ranging from pro-Europeanism to Eurosceptical “voices”. What implications can we draw from this story? Well aware about the provisional nature of the present conclusion, we just want to raise three points here. The first implication concerns the utility of these data to confirm the argument based on a more evident inclination of the current social-democratic party family to define a pro-European political discourse. An argument supported both by expert surveys analyses (Ray 1999) and intensive comparative analysis (Ladrech 2000). On the other hand, and this is the second implication, our data seem to suggest that the above argument should be combined with other arguments. Particularly, the argument of the more efficient adaptation to Europe of the “core parties”, closer to the governmental area. The Italian case shows, in fact, that the extreme parties are the most Eurosceptical and that (at least) one “core party” in both coalitions reproduces a positive message in favour of further integration in Europe. In the centre-left coalition this argument is much more easily applicable, while in the centre-right the success of Berlusconi and of his party has reduced the fully pro-European stances, at the moment limited to the voice of the small catholic centre party. A third implication concerns the persistence of a problematical linkage between internal discourse and external communication that emerges in most Italian party elites today. Even if the debate about Europe is much more active than yesterday, and it is more explicit about costs and benefits of the integration process, the party elites still seem to be unable to transform their general statements into a more articulate strategy. 41
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