“For us, the euro is a foreign currency. We are like Argentina which issued bonds in dollars”. And again: “Mr. Monti got on his knees in front of Germany. The spread was a real scam." Therefore: “The Government must go to Europe to re-discuss the fiscal compact and the mission of the ECB and this austerity policy must be changed”. He looks like Beppe Grillo but it's Silvio Berlusconi speaking and it doesn't matter that it was Silvio Berlusconi himself who genuflected before the European powers two years ago by signing the fiscal compact. But come on, what does it matter? Memory - unlike hoaxes - has never been the strong point of the Knight.
After yesterday's speech at the Palazzo dei Congressi in Rome in which Berlusconi acknowledged Alfano's divorce and with which he tried to relaunch Forza Italia, at least four points are very clear:
1) Berlusconi has decided to make the fight against the euro and anti-Europeanism his battle horse for the next European elections, for which he is thinking of standing as a candidate himself - if necessary from abroad - to get around the constraints that judicial sentences and the effects of the Severino law are putting its political viability;
2) in the field of the fight against the euro and anti-Europeanism, the differences between Berlusconi and Beppe Grillo (the comedian's hoax on the proposal to hold an impossible anti-euro referendum is memorable) are becoming more subtle every day and bring the two leaders closer to the populisms of all of the Old Continent;
3) precisely on the euro and on Europe the gaps between Berlusconi and Alfano are enormous but the split of the deputy prime minister should, from this point of view, strengthen the pro-European policy of the Letta government;
4) Berlusconi's anti-European offensive (Grillo and Lega) should induce Enrico Letta to break any hesitation and to take up the suggestions of the former president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, to join forces with France and Spain and bang the table by Mrs Merkel to cancel a one-way austerity which has nothing to do with the necessary rigor but which nips every timid sign of recovery in the bud.
It is too early to evaluate all the effects of the split in the centre-right, but certainly on European soil a battle in the light of the sun opens up in Italy from now on between those who – together with right-wing and far-left populisms from across the continent – denies the euro and Europe and those who want a Europe but profoundly different from the one we know and, precisely for this reason, are wondering how to make the single currency sustainable and how to change the Maastricht rules.
