With two surprise moves, Matteo Renzi it changed the course of Italian politics: it prevented Italy from entering a collision course with Europe and reopened the way for true bipolarity.
The first result could only be obtained by isolating Salvini and this was possible only by favoring the formation of a "government of purpose" between PD and 5 Stars. I confess that when Renzi made this proposal, my first reaction was rejection. I considered then and still consider the 5 Stars as a danger to the country and as a serious threat to representative democracy. But I have to acknowledge the fact that the formation of the yellow-red government was enough to block Salvini's anti-European drift.
Italy is now more firmly anchored to Europe, we have an authoritative European commissioner, Gentiloni, we have an Italian President of the European Parliament and we have two ministers, for the economy and for European affairs, both capable, reliable and convinced pro-Europeans. It's not little! Honestly, it couldn't have gone better than this. Of course, it is possible that everything good that the Conte bis government could give has already been given, all and immediately, and that, for the rest, it would be better to do nothing to avoid causing damage. That may be the case, but for the moment let's be content with the narrow escape.
However, the most important result for the country is the second one. Renzi's choice to promote the birth of a new political formation clearly reformist and pro-European, progressive and democratic, open to innovation and modernity; a formation that does not look at the world with spite and that does not fear globalization because it aspires to govern it, is really good news for Italy above all because it contrasts the current trend towards a radicalization in the opposite direction of Italian bipolarity.
Bipolarism is not dead, as many commentators believe. The victory of the 5 Stars (i.e. of a non-party party) in the last elections did not decree its end. More simply, it has triggered a radical process of reorganization of the political system, both on the right and on the left. A process that has just begun and that no one can say with certainty how it will end. What can reasonably be said is that, at the moment, the tendency in both poles is towards their radicalization (sovereignists on the right, populists on the left) and it is precisely this negative spiral for the country that Renzi's initiative is trying to stop.
The centre-right, once moderately and conservatively led but certainly pro-European, is transforming itself into a pole with sovereign traction, while the centre-left, until yesterday led by reformists, today sees populist positions prevail within it, especially in matters of the environment, social status and justice. This double radicalization, sovereignist on the one hand and populist on the other, is not good for the country and opens no prairie for centrist, moderate and reformist forces. On the contrary: it risks annihilating them, and for this reason it must be opposed, in Europe as in Italy.
Sovereignty cannot be defeated at the national level. It can only be defeated if Europe really demonstrates that it is capable of resolving the two major issues that feed it: emigration and growth. It is up to the new European Commission to move immediately in this direction, marking a clear discontinuity with the past. If it does so, if it demonstrates that emigration can be governed in a civilized, humane but also effective way and that it can grow again, then the populist consensus will flow back. provided that the national government does not row against it.
On the other hand, it is more difficult to counter populism because this task would first and foremost fall to the forces of the left which are, however, seriously infected by it. In the Democratic Party, especially now that Renzi has left, those who consider the government with the 5 Stars prevail, not as a temporary parenthesis, necessary to stop Salvini but destined to end in a short time, but as a real "constituent phase": as an opportunity to give life to a new political entity which, according to Franceschini, Boccia (ie Emiliano) and Bettini (mentor at the time of the former mayor of Rome Ignazio Marino) could arise from the social, political and even cultural of the two forces. It is a terrible blunder, which only confirms the extreme fragility, porosity and inconsistency of the political culture of the PD.
The Democratic Party is the never really matured fruit of the confluence of two cultural currents, that of Berlinguer's heirs and that of Dossetti's heirs, neither of which is truly reformist. Berlinguer and Dossetti were two great Italians, but neither of them was a reformist and to define them as such today is to do them wrong. The Democratic Party was reformist in spite of itself only when, thanks to the primaries, Renzi took the lead. A stranger, who has always been considered as such.
Now that Renzi is gone and that the reformist brake has greatly weakened the hypothesis of a slow slide of the Pd on the terrain of the 5 Stars (environmentalism, anti-industrialism, welfarism, justicialism, etc.) is very probable. It is difficult for Franceschini's, Boccia's and Bettini's Pds to oppose it vigorously. It is much more probable that the opposite will happen and that it is the 5 Stars that do to the Democratic Party what Salvini did to them, that is to engulf and downsize them.
Is this outcome obvious? Maybe not, but on two conditions: that the reformists who have remained in the Democratic Party firmly oppose the tendency to merge or merge with the 5 Stars and that those who support Renzi in his new venture resist the temptation to give the Democratic Party for lost to the cause of the reformist and pro-European pole. In both cases what is needed is not to raise the tone of the controversy but rather to adjust the shot of the political and, above all, cultural confrontation.
The discussion on electoral reform will obviously be crucial. The best solution for the country would be the majority, possibly in two shifts. Today, however, the wind seems to be blowing in a different direction. This is also why it would be important for the reformists, wherever they are located, in the centre, on the left or on the right, to try to define a common choice.
