A mix of contextual and of more political factors lies behind these results. According to the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s 2017 Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI) on Italy the economic recovery started to take off under the Democratic Party-based governments of Matteo Renzi and Paolo Gentiloni, but people’s perceptions didn’t change much and are still dominated by the effects of the deep recession of the past years – fear of unemployment, experiences of business failures, and the tightening of living conditions. Naturally, the main governing parties suffer under such conditions, whereas opposition parties that are perceived as being far distant from the government enjoy voters’ goodwill. Thus, first and foremost the Five Star Movement and the League grew rather than Forza Italia which had headed the government three times between 1994 and 2008.
A second reason for the success of these two parties is the growing resentment in large strata of the population against the policies of the EU. Many people feel damaged by economic austerity on the one hand and resent the scant solidarity shown to Italy’s problems with immigration on the other. The Five Star Movement and the League have both shown very critical attitudes towards the EU – to the point of even suggesting a referendum on the Euro. [...]
If an alliance of the twin winners is rejected, both leaders have to court the centre of the parliament in order to build a majority. They have already given some signals in this direction. This means they will have to moderate some of their most radical positions. In particular, both will have to bargain with political forces that are more pro-European. We may expect therefore a government that would raise questions in Brussels but not refuse cooperation. It would be wise for EU authorities and other European leaders to encourage this process by paying more attention to the problems that Italy has been facing recently, not least because some were exacerbated by sub-par EU policies.
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