Economics is known as the “dismal science”for a number of reasons, some semi-mythical, some fundamentally practical. Central to all the reasons is the discipline’s sometimes incovenient tendency to pull back comforting political fables to reveal the often quite divergent realities underneath.
That tendency is on full display in Italy, which is now heading to the polls (and, what with time zone differentials, might even be done voting by the time this publishes) to elect a new government (a perennial Italian pastime, it seems)—and is likely to elect its first woman Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni.
The prospect of a charismatic nationalist taking power with almost no government experience has investors and officials on edge. Italy, of course, is wrestling with the fallout from the most serious conflict in Europe since World War II. But the country has been adrift for years, struggling to hit on a formula which can unlock its potential while still staying true to its identity.
For all its recent economic stagnation, Italy remains the fourth largest economy in the Eurozone, which makes what happens in Italy of extreme importance to the Eurocrats in Brussels. Unsurprisingly, the mostly globalist and supranationalist leaders in Brussels are none too enthused about Italy being led by an ardent nationalist, someone who is unapologetically far more pro-Italy than pro-Europe.
See her on stage and you can understand it: She’s charming, she’s determined, and she’s very, very Italian. But for the officials and investors across Europe watching nervously as she closes in on victory in Sunday’s election, there’s one basic question still to be answered: who is Giorgia Meloni?
“We will see the result of the vote in Italy,” said von der Leyen. “If things go in a difficult direction — and I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland — we have the tools.” Von der Leyen made the comment after a journalist at Princeton University in the United States said that there were candidates in the Italian elections “close to Putin” and asked her how the EU would react if they were elected.
Italian politicians, in particular former opposition figures such as Matteo Salvini, were rather less than impressed.
Italian politicians are already responding to von der Leyen’s threat.
“What is this, a threat? This is shameful arrogance,” tweeted Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy’s far-right League party. He asked von der Leyen to “respect the free, democratic and sovereign vote of the Italian people.”
He also said on Italian TV that “if anyone in Brussels thinks of cutting the funds that belong to Italy, because the League wins the elections, then we have to rethink this Europe,” adding that “this is institutional bullying.”
The parlous state of Europe’s overall economy—and of Italy’s economy individually—is bringing to the fore the long-simmering and never fully-resolved conflict with the EU between the ardent nationalists (one could also say “patriotic nationalists”) and the unapologetic globalists. Should Giorgia Meloni win election as Prime Minister, one rather obvious takeaway will be that Italians prefer being Italians over being Europeans.
If/When Giorgia Meloni is elected as Prime Minister, is the EU superstructure prepared to deal with an ardent nationalist? Will Ursula von der Leyen feel in any way tempted or even pressured to interfere in the domestic politics of the EU’s fourth largest economy?
The future of Europe—already dicey due to worsening economic conditions from the ongoing conflict with Russia—may rest entirely on whether The European Commissiont President “approves” of Italy’s choice of government to tackle rampant inflation.
Humans as a whole are more prosperous when they atomize rather than unify. There has long been a fascination with the power of unifying, but that power is almost always misguided. All "unions" should disband: EU, US, UN.....
PNK, their economic problems are nothing compared to their total military inferiority to the former Soviet strategic weapons, to say nothing of what the Russian Federation has accrued since then in quantity and capability and technical capability.
Judge Russia by it's performance in Ukraine they say.
Didn't we see much the same "performance" in Grozny, and now the Chechen soldiers are dying for Russia, in Ukraine.
I know you may disagree, but the cards are all starting to add up and it looks particularly dangerous for the West, whatever that is now.
Boy, I do feel you have some good instincts on this economic slide, clearly the most important part of all. Europe is done with this leadership, can Italy survive? Doubtful, but maybe they will sell the rest of the way out to the Chinese.
You know Porsche dropped out of the Red Bull purchase plan, but a Chinese owned Ferrari could make them a deal they couldn't refuse!
I'm glad you are able to admirably wrap your head around this!
Given Russia's recent performance in Ukraine, in particular the spanking they've gotten around Kharkiv and Izyum, a judgement on the performance does not look favorable for Russia.
Grozny and Kherson are not exactly analogous, either. When Russia laid siege to Grozny, issues of resupplying their field artillery did not arise. Throughout the Second Chechen War the Russian forces had good logistics and good supply lines.
That isn't happening in Ukraine, and even the Russian sources drop factoids that tacitly admit this.
Russian industry is not having success satiating the military demand for weapons and material. And they'd better start having success soon or those 300,000 new conscripts are going to be engaging with the Ukrainians with sticks and stones (assuming, of course, that those 300,000 troops show up: there appears to be a substantial draft resistance sentiment in Russia, and it is still uncertain whether that sentiment is going to coalesce into an actual anti-war movement or if its going to grow at all).
Moreover, those 300,000 troops don't add 300,000 to the battlefield. With about 200,000 forces already engaged in Ukraine, all of whom have been in constant fighting for six months and need to be rotated out, rested, and refitted, this reservist call-up amounts to little more than sufficient numbers to keep the current level of engagement going. Depending on the state of the militias in Luhansk and Donetsk, 300,000 might not be enough to mount significant new offensives.
Right now, the tempo of the war favors Kyiv. Putin needs a fresh offensive soon to reverse that or he's stuck exactly where he is now, in a costly war of attrition that, frankly, he can't afford.
Where I agree with you is that the situation IS dangerous for "the West". If Putin suffers too many reverses in Ukraine he may be the next Russian official to accidentally fall out of a high window towards his retirement. In one scenario this increases the risk of nuclear exchange, as Putin attempts to play that card to turn the tide of war back in his favor. In another scenario this leads to an ultra-nationalist regime in Moscow (there are ethnonationalists within Russia and within the Kremlin who are even more extreme than Putin). In yet another scenario there is a direct military engagement with a NATO country, activating Article V and giving us the long-feared WW3. Europe's own instability does not help deal with any of this. Instead, it compounds it.
Even if Meloni joins Hungary's Orban in opposing sanctions (her ally Berlusconi is already there), that by itself is not going to change the EU's stance on sanctions, and with Germany standing by those sanctions even as their own economy unravels, it seems unlikely that Italy is going to have the clout to move the EU against the sanctions. It's also unlikely if reversing the sanctions now would make much difference. Sanctions aren't stopping Russian Natural Gas at this point.
As for Italy selling to the Chinese: at this point I doubt Beijing has either the yuan or the desire to buy. No country is retreating from the globalized economy faster than China.
It's not the "world order" that is collapsing, but the world itself.
The European leadership has proven time and time again that they are buffoons. They never learn from their mistakes and instead double-down on them. Case in point is their response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. They still haven't learned that sanctioning large, resource-producing countries such as Russia is not the same as sanctioning small countries like North Korea. That comes with real repercussions that are difficult to control. Likewise, they are unable to see that threatening a large country and economy such as Italy is vastly different than threatening a smaller country like Hungary. They think they know how to control Italy, but they are incapable of seeing beyond the first step. The EU is an abomination. I don't see how it can last much longer in its current form.
As an Italian, I see this as a further polarization and amplification of divide and conquer which benefits empire manipulation, yet again, to stretch the use of petrodollar as looting currency. I must add Forza Italia is big on marketing on working with Russia, but like many centrist -- WEF aligned parties, it does not have the skillset to put that into practice, just as Northern league..... tons of money for divide and conquer PR though!
Humans as a whole are more prosperous when they atomize rather than unify. There has long been a fascination with the power of unifying, but that power is almost always misguided. All "unions" should disband: EU, US, UN.....
PNK, their economic problems are nothing compared to their total military inferiority to the former Soviet strategic weapons, to say nothing of what the Russian Federation has accrued since then in quantity and capability and technical capability.
Judge Russia by it's performance in Ukraine they say.
Didn't we see much the same "performance" in Grozny, and now the Chechen soldiers are dying for Russia, in Ukraine.
I know you may disagree, but the cards are all starting to add up and it looks particularly dangerous for the West, whatever that is now.
Boy, I do feel you have some good instincts on this economic slide, clearly the most important part of all. Europe is done with this leadership, can Italy survive? Doubtful, but maybe they will sell the rest of the way out to the Chinese.
You know Porsche dropped out of the Red Bull purchase plan, but a Chinese owned Ferrari could make them a deal they couldn't refuse!
I'm glad you are able to admirably wrap your head around this!
Given Russia's recent performance in Ukraine, in particular the spanking they've gotten around Kharkiv and Izyum, a judgement on the performance does not look favorable for Russia.
Grozny and Kherson are not exactly analogous, either. When Russia laid siege to Grozny, issues of resupplying their field artillery did not arise. Throughout the Second Chechen War the Russian forces had good logistics and good supply lines.
That isn't happening in Ukraine, and even the Russian sources drop factoids that tacitly admit this.
Russian industry is not having success satiating the military demand for weapons and material. And they'd better start having success soon or those 300,000 new conscripts are going to be engaging with the Ukrainians with sticks and stones (assuming, of course, that those 300,000 troops show up: there appears to be a substantial draft resistance sentiment in Russia, and it is still uncertain whether that sentiment is going to coalesce into an actual anti-war movement or if its going to grow at all).
Moreover, those 300,000 troops don't add 300,000 to the battlefield. With about 200,000 forces already engaged in Ukraine, all of whom have been in constant fighting for six months and need to be rotated out, rested, and refitted, this reservist call-up amounts to little more than sufficient numbers to keep the current level of engagement going. Depending on the state of the militias in Luhansk and Donetsk, 300,000 might not be enough to mount significant new offensives.
Right now, the tempo of the war favors Kyiv. Putin needs a fresh offensive soon to reverse that or he's stuck exactly where he is now, in a costly war of attrition that, frankly, he can't afford.
Where I agree with you is that the situation IS dangerous for "the West". If Putin suffers too many reverses in Ukraine he may be the next Russian official to accidentally fall out of a high window towards his retirement. In one scenario this increases the risk of nuclear exchange, as Putin attempts to play that card to turn the tide of war back in his favor. In another scenario this leads to an ultra-nationalist regime in Moscow (there are ethnonationalists within Russia and within the Kremlin who are even more extreme than Putin). In yet another scenario there is a direct military engagement with a NATO country, activating Article V and giving us the long-feared WW3. Europe's own instability does not help deal with any of this. Instead, it compounds it.
Even if Meloni joins Hungary's Orban in opposing sanctions (her ally Berlusconi is already there), that by itself is not going to change the EU's stance on sanctions, and with Germany standing by those sanctions even as their own economy unravels, it seems unlikely that Italy is going to have the clout to move the EU against the sanctions. It's also unlikely if reversing the sanctions now would make much difference. Sanctions aren't stopping Russian Natural Gas at this point.
As for Italy selling to the Chinese: at this point I doubt Beijing has either the yuan or the desire to buy. No country is retreating from the globalized economy faster than China.
It's not the "world order" that is collapsing, but the world itself.
The European leadership has proven time and time again that they are buffoons. They never learn from their mistakes and instead double-down on them. Case in point is their response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. They still haven't learned that sanctioning large, resource-producing countries such as Russia is not the same as sanctioning small countries like North Korea. That comes with real repercussions that are difficult to control. Likewise, they are unable to see that threatening a large country and economy such as Italy is vastly different than threatening a smaller country like Hungary. They think they know how to control Italy, but they are incapable of seeing beyond the first step. The EU is an abomination. I don't see how it can last much longer in its current form.
As an Italian, I see this as a further polarization and amplification of divide and conquer which benefits empire manipulation, yet again, to stretch the use of petrodollar as looting currency. I must add Forza Italia is big on marketing on working with Russia, but like many centrist -- WEF aligned parties, it does not have the skillset to put that into practice, just as Northern league..... tons of money for divide and conquer PR though!