The Italian elections and their implications for Europe

Organised by

• Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies
• EGPP: European Governance and Politics Programme

Italians will go to the polls on 25 September to elect a new national parliament. This contest will be closely watched. Italy is the largest single recipient of funding from Next Generation EU. European institutions and partners will want to know whether the government elected to replace Mario Draghi’s coalition of national unity will be as effective in pushing the reforms necessary to qualify for support and spending the money received in a timely and efficient manner. Italy is also home to a large and very liquid sovereign debt market. The Financial Times has already reported that bond market participants are laying huge bets on whether the new government will inspire the same kind of confidence as the government it replaces. Those bond market participants are also curious to see how well the Italian government can manage its finances in a context of accelerating inflation and rising interest rates. The war in Ukraine generates a different sort of interest. The Draghi government played a leading role both in the European Union and in the NATO alliance. Whether the next Italian government is as steadfast in its support for Ukraine or its opposition to the Russian invasion is another question that the elections raise.

This special seminar in the European Governance and Politics Programme (EGPP) Seminar Series addresses these questions and analyses the results of the elections offering plausible scenarios on the future of Italy and its impact on European-wide developments.

In the run up to the elections the EGPP has launched its online tool (in Italian) that aims to help Italian citizens make an informed choice. It invites users to react to 30 statements covering a wide range of contemporary policy issues and political values in Italian politics. The initiative is part of a larger project collecting data on political parties across Europe since 2009.

Links:

• Live-streaming