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The political news in recent days has focused much attention on a vote that will take place in the Senate on Wednesday, December 9, which according to some observers could put the government supported by the 5-Star Movement and the Democratic Party in great difficulties.
On Wednesday the 9th the Chamber and the Senate will vote on the Prime Minister’s communications with a view to the next meeting of the European Council – that is, the body of the European Union that includes the 27 heads of state and government – scheduled for the 10th of December and the Summit. euro, which is from the countries that are part of the eurozone, the next day. In this last meeting, in particular, the reform of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) will be approved, a European institution that aims to help the countries of the eurozone during economic crises, on which the 5-Star Movement is historically found. skeptical.
In the 5 Stars Movement, very strong internal tensions between the moderate and radical wings have continued for months, which among other things have caused a split in the group in the European Parliament: the fear of the PD and the moderate wing of the M5S is that the wing El Radical party may have the numbers to reject Conte’s communication. According to some, such a vote would be seen as a kind of no-confidence motion for the entire government, while other observers doubt the government will fall: but it is not entirely clear whether the opposition will be able to muster the votes necessary to actually raise the issue.
What to vote on
Parliament will limit itself to approving or rejecting the communications of Conte, who in his speech will explain why the Italian government will approve the reform of the ESM at the next Euro Summit. It will not be a vote on its final approval, which will be held in the Parliaments of the countries involved in the coming months if the reform is approved by the European institutions, or on the request for access to its funds, which has been denied on several occasions. by the Italian government in recent months.
The MES reform has been under discussion since 2018 and for much of 2019 it was blocked by the first Conte government, the one supported by Lega and Movimento 5 Stelle. It foresees two substantial changes, which have been debated in Europe for a long time: a single resolution fund to help the most troubled European banks, financed by the European banks themselves with an availability of 55 billion euros, and the obligation of an un country requesting help from the ESM to issue particular government bonds (the so-called “single-strand CAC”) that will allow creditors a “restructuring” of the debt, that is, a reduction, by a single vote, instead of of with the more complex procedures of other types of government bonds.
This means that a country in trouble could give less than it owes to its creditors, which is good; But the least good – and feared – is that creditors, knowing this possibility, end up asking for higher interest rates from the countries they perceive to be at greater risk, such as Italy.
For the moment, however, the hypothesis of a new banking crisis is considered very remote, and all the countries of the European Union have spoken in favor of the reform of the ESM, even those that in the past had resorted to its lines of advice. credit.
– Read also: The MEDE and its reform, explained
So why is it so much talked about?
The ESM has long been one of the most toxic topics in political debate in Italy. Populist and Eurosceptic parties such as the Lega and in part the 5-Star Movement accuse him of being a tool of the European elites to impose drastic reforms and the transfer of sovereignty to the most conflictive countries, in exchange for economic aid.
Access to ESM credit lines actually requires each State to commit to agreeing on some macroeconomic measures with the operators of the mechanism, which at the beginning of the 2000s mainly meant drastic reductions in public spending and the national debt. , with quite negative consequences in the short term (also admitted in an internal ESM report published in 2020 on the guaranteed loan to Greece between 2015 and 2018).
Today we are in a very different period: the limits of the first loans guaranteed by the ESM are known to all, and the rigorous approach is becoming more and more minority within the European economic institutions. The last line of credit from the MEDE, the so-called “health” to cover the costs required by the coronavirus pandemic, contains much fewer obligations on the part of the countries that want to access, although no country has used it for now, and the reform in discussion these days it is considered very little “connoted” from a political or economic point of view.
The M5S crisis, the ambiguity of Forza Italia
In the Italian debate, however, the ESM is still perceived as an instrument of intrusion by the European institutions in the national dynamics, and as such it is treated: probably because some parties have described it as an absolute evil, even a reform harmless enough would be perceived as a vote “for” the ESM.
On December 2, 58 M5S deputies belonging to the radical wing – 42 deputies and 16 senators – signed a letter explaining their opposition to the reform, including the introduction of the “single member CAC” and other more general criticisms. Two days later the founder of the M5S Beppe Grillo published an extensive post entitled “The MONTH is over” in which he proposes alternatives “that would bring many billions to the State coffers in a short time, if anything was needed”: In fact, speaking of a possible activation of the ESM, and not of its reform, which is the subject currently under discussion. “It is clear that his post – an intervention in the heart of the political controversy since it has not been given for months – will give cover and legitimacy to the extremists,” summarized the Bed sheet, who first published the letter of the 58 parliamentarians.
Even the main far-right parties oppose the reform, with even more agitated tones: the secretary of the League Matteo Salvini said that “the reform in the MES manages to worsen an already negative treaty”, and that “for the lords of Brussels Italians would have to pay without saying anything to plug the holes of others ”, while if“ Italy were in need, we would have to bear the consequences of a Troika model Greece ”. According to Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy,” say yes to the reform of the ESM would mean definitively handing over Italian sovereignty to European dictates and using Italian money to save German banks “.
Forza Italia’s position is less linear, in favor of the possible Italian request to access the MES health line but contrary to the reform currently under discussion. Perhaps because in recent days Salvini and Meloni had threatened to break the alliance with Forza Italia if it returned to vote together with the government after the approval of the latest budget variation.
The numbers in the Senate
To be approved, the motion on Conte’s communication needs a relative majority: that is, that the Yess exceed the No in both Houses. As of the beginning of the second Conte government, the problem will be the possession of the majority in the Senate, where it currently controls about 170 senators out of 320. The opposition has 149: to reject a motion presented by the government, in short, it would be enough by subtracting them from the majority. a dozen votes.
It’s unclear how many senators from the 5-Star Movement will vote against the motion – the circulating numbers speak of a fairly balanced vote. The journalist Annalisa Cuzzocrea from Republic, who has been following the internal dynamics of the 5 Star Movement for years, speaks today of “at least ten” senators. According to Print have between six and eight, while for the Sole 24 Mineral There are only six: the latter adds that the three senators belonging to Cambiamo, the party of the president of the Liguria region, Giovanni Toti, could vote by majority.
What if the government collapses?
It has happened other times that the government has lost votes in the Senate, but on much less important occasions. Neither Conte nor his ministers would be obliged to resign, since the vote will not be a formal motion of censure. In recent days, however, several leaders of the Democratic Party – among them, above all, the leader of the group in the House, Graziano Delrio – and the leader of Italy Viva Matteo Renzi have warned that in case of rejection of the motion, most would disappear.
However, the heads of the moderate wing of the M5S have assured that the votes of the senators of the radical wing will not be decisive and that the motion will be approved. According to some commentators, neither the moderate wing nor the radical wing of the M5S would have any interest in going to the vote, given that at this time the movement has no real leadership – which should be defined in the next few weeks at the end of the States General- and above all, the polls give it a far cry from the result obtained in the 2018 political elections, when it obtained 32 percent.
Since the discussion on the ESM was resumed there have been several authoritarian rumors according to which the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, also believes that in case of rejection of Conte’s motion, the government should resign: but there are no official confirmations, and it is not clear what Mattarella could do in such an eventuality.
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