Italian Prime Minister Calls Populism a Threat to Stability in Europe
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Version 0 of 1. ROME — With European parliamentary elections less than eight months away, Prime Minister Enrico Letta of Italy on Monday warned that the rise of angry populism poses the greatest threat to stability on the Continent and could undermine critical efforts to build and strengthen the euro zone’s political and financial institutions. “We have the big risk to have the most ‘anti-European’ European Parliament ever,” Mr. Letta said in an expansive interview at Palazzo Chigi, his office in central Rome. He said mainstream, pro-Europe parties must win at least 70 percent of the seats to avoid a “nightmarish legislature.” “The rise of populism is today the main European social and political issue,” Mr. Letta added. “To fight against populism, in my view, is a mission today — in Italy and in the other countries.” Mr. Letta, 47, who became prime minister in April, is scheduled to meet with President Obama in Washington on Thursday to discuss free-trade efforts, instability in Libya and immigration issues in the Mediterranean area. During the interview on Monday, Mr. Letta said Italy would soon announce details of a new government plan to expand air and sea patrols in the Strait of Sicily, following two accidents in which hundreds of migrants died after smugglers’ boats capsized while trying to reach the Italian island of Lampedusa. “Italy will work without waiting for European decisions,” he said. “We know that, at the European level, it is impossible to have on these issues timely decisions. But people are dying today, not waiting for bureaucratic achievement in six or nine months.” In recent weeks, Mr. Letta has emerged as a newly empowered figure in Italian and European politics, after he fended off an attempt by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to bring down the coalition government, winning a resounding confidence vote for his government on Oct. 2. On Monday, Mr. Letta returned to the same argument he made to save his government: that Italy must avoid political instability so that Parliament can pass important political overhauls but also because lending rates on Italian debt rise with every political crisis. He said lower interest rates could free up 15 billion euros, or $20.4 billion, from debt payments to fulfill promises on tax cuts for labor costs. “Political stability is decisive,” said Mr. Letta, who conducted the interview in English. “Somebody has criticized me, saying it’s just words. It’s not words — it’s money.” Mr. Letta said Italy’s recent political upheaval had hardly happened in a vacuum: He described the current political standoff in the United States, as well as various political confrontations in Europe, as part of a broader, interconnected moment in which governance is failing in some democracies — and alienating voters in the process, driving populist movements of all stripes. Declining to comment specifically about continuing negotiations in Washington, Mr. Letta said that the world needed America. “We need the American leadership,” he said. “Last year, American leadership helped the Europeans to overcome the economic problems of the austerity and the euro crisis. We need the American leadership on growth, on the fight against protectionism. This is why we hope for a solution, of course, of the internal problems, because we need this leadership.” Italy’s political landscape has been turbulent for more than a year, with more than eight million voters supporting the new, populist Five Star Movement, led by a former comedian, Beppe Grillo, in the last national elections. Mr. Letta, who once served as an elected member of the European Parliament, said parliamentary elections in May would serve as Europe’s biggest test on whether the momentum toward greater integration and euro zone institution building could be impeded. “The big risk is to have a European Parliament with 25 percent of Parliament coming from anti-euro or Europe movements,” he said, noting that populist movements in different countries arose from different places on the political spectrum. “It’s very difficult to say left or right. Some of them are racists. Some of them are not racists,” he added. “But they are all anti-euro and all anti-Europe.” The broad political alienation represented by these parties is partly rooted in that failure of governance, Mr. Letta said, arguing the governments have to become more transparent and responsive. He said legislation in Italy to overhaul public financing of elections would be an initial step to try to show disaffected voters that mainstream parties were trying to respond, as would pending changes to make voting more representative. He also took encouragement from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s recent re-election in Germany, where she beat back anti-Europe voices for a resounding victory. Asked if Ms. Merkel’s insistence on austerity was to blame for rising populism across Europe, Mr. Letta instead blamed institutional disarray at the European level, saying that it took five years and more than two dozen summit meetings before a political response could be mustered, delays that allowed public fury to grow. He said the crisis subsided only after the head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, promised to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro, a pledge that eased market pressures on countries like Spain, Greece and Italy but did not resolve Europe’s unfinished institutional challenges. Mr. Letta said that the central bank should not become a “political power” and that Europe must strengthen the political institutions over the euro zone and, as one example, complete and deliver banking integration by year’s end. “We wasted a lot of money just because of the lack of instruments to avoid financial and banking crises,” he said. Italy has the third-largest economy on the Continent and has endured a severe downturn, with the country mired in recession for two years, even as France, Germany and other northern European nations have rebounded. Italy’s public debt is forecast to exceed 130 percent of gross domestic product in 2013, the second-highest in Europe, trailing only Greece’s. Unemployment is at 12 percent, with youth unemployment recently hitting 40 percent for the first time. Mr. Letta said that addressing youth unemployment should be Europe’s biggest priority, with an emphasis on spurring growth. Yet the constraints on his government are obvious, since he has very little leeway in his budget to stimulate growth. This week, he will present a budget that he says will send a strong signal to Italian voters and foreign investors: For the first time in five years, he said, Italy’s general indebtedness would decrease, while the country’s budget deficit would be kept at 3 percent, dropping even lower in 2014. Yet finding money to stimulate growth through tax cuts or programs to employ young people remains difficult. Mr. Letta is at least trying to signal that, for the moment, Italian politics have stabilized after the confidence vote on Oct. 2. “It was a big call for stability,” he said, “rising from the country, rising from entrepreneurs, workers, institutions.” <NYT_AUTHOR_ID> <p>Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting. |