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Boris Johnson remains a dangerous force in UK politics
Carl Bildt, co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations and former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics, this week from the Oslo airport.
Is the political career of Boris Johnson over?
Seems to be the case but you can never be entirely certain, in his particular case. I think he has the ambition to come back. And clearly, he's going to remain a dangerous, in my opinion, a very disruptive force inside the Conservative Party. If they lose the election next year, which is not unlikely, mildly speaking, there might be a civil war and Boris Johnson might be one of the leaders of that particular civil war inside the Conservative Party. But remains to be seen.
What's the legacy, political and otherwise, of Silvio Berlusconi?
Well, to be on the positive side, he created a media empire. He did some reforms of the Italian political system after the scandals that sort of ripped apart the old political system in the past, but apart from that and in spite of the fact that he is now, sort of, given a state funeral and everyone is parading for him, that happens in situations like this, I think his legacy is mostly negative on the populist, who in three terms of government did very, very little to address the fundamental problems of the Italian economy, in the Italian state. A populist man who maneuvered, a man who had self-interest at the center of most things. But I think history will not judge him too kind.
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi attends a rally ahead of a regional election in Emilia-Romagna.
Former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi dies at 86
On Monday, Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's longest-serving prime minister, died at age 86. Il Cavaliere (The Knight) finally succumbed to the chronic leukemia that kept him out of the limelight for the past few months.
It's hard to overstate the influence Berlusconi has had on Italian politics since he burst onto the scene in the 1990s. That's when Berlusconi leveraged his immense wealth, media empire, and ownership of the successful AC Milan soccer club to get himself elected to the top job with his Forza Italia Party, a precursor of the right-wing populist forces that rule Italy today. His first premiership lasted less than a year in 1994-1995, but he won it again twice more in 2006-2008 and 2008-2011.
To his critics, Berlusconi wrote the playbook for future world leaders on defying political norms and avoiding accountability for abusing power. Despite a whopping 19 indictments filed against him — for crimes ranging from corruption, tax fraud, and bribery, to underage prostitution at his famous "bunga bunga" booze-fueled parties — Berlusconi was only convicted once for tax evasion in 2013 and never spent a day behind bars. He got away with the rest thanks to amnesties or statutes of limitations.
But to his fans, Berlusconi was a shrewd businessman and wily statesman who elevated Italy to the world stage. And he certainly demonstrated an uncanny ability to navigate Italy's deeply fragmented political system to remain relevant until his death.
Berlusconi's death won't undermine the stability of Italy's right-wing coalition government led by Giorgia Meloni. (The current PM once served as his cabinet minister, but the two have been at odds over Berlusconi's controversial support for Vladimir Putin.)
"Forza Italia, the most junior member of the coalition, is heavily dependent on Berlusconi’s brand and wealth, so the party will likely fizzle out over time," says Eurasia Group analyst Federico Santi. "Now, the fight begins among right-wing parties over who inherits Berlusconi’s political legacy and following."
For the moment, Santi adds, "Meloni is best placed to play this role, and Berlusconi's death is likely to further strengthen her hand."
Brothers of Italy party leader Giorgia Meloni attends the fourth voting session to elect the new parliament speaker in Rome.
What We’re Watching: Italy’s new leadership questions, Russia’s martial law, US midterm messaging
Meloni faces uphill battle in Italy
How long can any Italian government last? That’s a good question in a country that has had 67 governments in the past 76 years. Now Giorgia Meloni, head of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, is set to take over as prime minister, and the going won’t be easy. The economy is hurtling towards recession, says the IMF, while consumer prices are soaring, particularly for energy – in part due to the war in Ukraine. But while she has pledged continued support for Ukraine, Meloni’s coalition partner Silvio Berlusconi, head of Forza Italia, has signaled a different view. The aging former prime minister and media mogul is picking fights over ministerial posts, belittling Meloni publicly, and in a leaked recording, talked about recently exchanging liquor with Vladimir Putin while questioning Italy’s support for Kyiv. Berlusconi is a minor partner compared to the more powerful Matteo Salvini and his rightist League Party, but Meloni has also clashed with Salvini on energy matters. So we’ll be watching to see how warm and cozy this coalition stays as Meloni heads into a winter of troubles.
Putin declares martial law
Well, he still refuses to call it a “war,” but as Russian forces continue to reel from a Ukrainian counteroffensive, President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday declared martial law in four regions of Ukraine that he illegally annexed in September. The decree gives the local governors broad powers to forcibly relocate, detain, or otherwise restrict the liberties of the population. In a separate decree, Putin also expanded the powers of governors elsewhere in Russia proper to do the same. The move comes as officials in the province of Kherson, seized by Russia in early March, began evacuating large numbers of people ahead of a feared Ukrainian advance on the capital city. Kherson city is a key port located where the Dnipro River meets the Black Sea. The surrounding region gives overland access from mainland Ukraine to the Crimean peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. With the recently sabotaged Kerch Strait bridge unlikely to be fully repaired before next summer, Kherson is a crucial strategic prize for both sides.
US midterms roundup: both sides taking best shots now
With the US midterm elections less than three weeks away, both Republicans and Democrats are zeroing in on some key messages. The latest polling shows things edging the Republicans’ way, but the races remain extremely tight. President Joe Biden on Tuesday tried to light a fresh fire under Democrats by promising to Federally codify abortion rights if Democrats can improve on their effective 51-seat majority in the Senate and hold on to the House. Biden has also promised to release more crude from the US’ emergency stockpiles this winter to tamp down high energy costs. The GOP, for their part, are hammering the administration over their own voters’ key issues: the highest inflation in 40 years, an uptick in crime in some big cities, and record numbers of undocumented immigrants at the southern border. But House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday played a new card that we may see more of, promising to revisit support for Ukraine if his party retakes the House. His remarks expose a potential rift between America First Republicans, who are skeptical of supporting Ukraine, and more establishment GOP Russia hawks. Still, about two-thirds of Americans support Washington’s current policy of arming Ukraine.This article comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Sign up today.
Brothers of Italy leader Giorgia Meloni poses with her ballot at a polling station in Rome.
What We’re Watching: Italian far-right wins big, Russia holds sham votes in Ukraine
Far-right sweeps to power in Italian election
As expected, a three-party coalition led by the far-right won Italy's legislative election on Sunday, paving the way for Giorgia Meloni to become the country's first female PM and most rightwing leader since Benito Mussolini. With almost all ballots counted, Meloni's Brothers of Italy party came in first with over 26% of the vote. Along with Lega and Forza Italia, the coalition she leads will get more than 43% — enough for a majority of seats in both the 400-member lower house of parliament and the 200-member Senate. What happens next? The three parties have about six weeks to form a government captained by Meloni, who's pretty radical on some things but less so on others. She wants to stay in the EU but for Brussels to have less power over Italian affairs. Meloni also backs EU and NATO moves to support Ukraine against Russia (unlike one of her two junior coalition partners, former PM Silvio Berlusconi, a longtime Vladimir Putin pal who seemed to defend Russia's invasion on the eve of the election). Still, Meloni's top priority now is ensuring that Italy gets all the EU pandemic relief cash it needs to weather high inflation and an energy crisis.
Russia pushes to annex occupied regions in sham referenda
Russia keeps moving to formally annex four Ukrainian regions currently under its occupation. On Friday, five days of referenda got underway in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. While the Western media reports that armed soldiers are going door-to-door to collect votes, Russian state media says they’re just around for security. Expected to wrap on Tuesday, the referenda could end up with Russia gobbling up some 15% of Ukraine. Annexations would be in violation of international law. Still, they would also give Russia cover to resist future Ukrainian advances by claiming any assaults as attacks on Russian sovereignty, which could lead to further escalation. Fighting in the region continues, and the Ukrainians claim to have taken out several Russian armor and artillery systems. Kyiv, for its part, has appealed to loyal residents in affected areas to “resist” the plebiscites. Meanwhile, the White House has called the referenda a sham, and the G7 has followed suit. The Brits claim to have evidence that Russia is planning to formalize the annexation by the end of the month.
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From left to right, Lega leader Matteo Salvini, Forza Italia leader Silvio Berlusconi, and Brothers of Italy leader Giorgia Meloni during a campaign rally in Rome.
What We're Watching: Italian election, Chinese anti-corruption drive, Lebanese bank shutdown
Italy votes!
Italians head to the polls on Sunday and are likely to elect Italy’s first far-right leader since World War II. Giorgia Meloni, 47, who heads the Brothers of Italy Party (which has neofascist roots) is slated to become Italy’s next PM. Polls indicate Brothers will win about a quarter of the vote, while her three-party coalition, including Matteo Salvini’s far-right Lega Party and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, is projected to secure around 45%. Four years ago, Brothers – established in 2012 – reaped just 4% of the vote, but it has benefited recently from the left’s implosion as well as Meloni’s refusal to back the centrist Draghi government, which collapsed this summer, making her the most formidable opposition figure (Salvini and Berlusconi backed Draghi). Italy has convoluted voting rules but will be voting on 400 seats in the Chamber of Deputies (lower house) and 200 seats in the Senate – the winning coalition needs a majority in both. Meloni aims to dilute the EU’s power over Italian affairs, though she believes Rome must preserve close ties with Brussels, and she supports EU and NATO efforts to contain Russian aggression. Read this primer to learn more about what Meloni does – and doesn’t – stand for.
Xi's war on corruption — and disloyalty
A Chinese court on Thursday gave one of Xi Jinping’s former anti-corruption top dogs a death sentence that will be commuted to life in prison after two years for ... bribery. Fu Zhenghua, a former police chief and justice minister who led multiple probes under Xi's former anti-graft czar, pleaded guilty in July to taking $16.5 million in bribes, presumably in exchange for the commutation. The plot thickens: Fu was busted amid a wider crackdown on a ring of dirty ex-cops led by Sun Lijun, who’s awaiting his own sentence for bribery. But as far as the ruling Communist Party is concerned, their most heinous crime was setting up a political faction separate to Xi’s, which is why its members are getting hefty punishments. (Juicy tidbits of their case were featured in “Zero Tolerance,” a slick state-sponsored docuseries that celebrates the success of Xi's war on graft.) The timing is interesting too: in about three weeks, the CCP is holding its 20th Party Congress, where Xi is expected to get a precedent-shattering third term as secretary-general. The party has a penchant for taking down dirty officials ahead of big dates, but going after a clique of cadres disloyal to Xi sends a clear message: don’t cross the big boss.
Unbanked Lebanon
Lebanese can’t catch a break. They’ve had their dollar savings withdrawals strictly limited since the Lebanese pound dropped in late 2019. And now, two weeks after a woman held up a bank to withdraw part of her own savings to pay for her sister's cancer treatment, inspiring copycat heists, the banks have simply shut. Citing security concerns, the country’s banking association says all banks will remain closed indefinitely. ATM services in pounds are available, but the shutdown is expected to make things even worse for the 80% of Lebanese who already struggle to pay for their daily needs with the weakened currency amid sky-high inflation. This is just the latest twist in Lebanon’s descent into economic collapse, which started three years ago. The government, meanwhile, keeps giving the International Monetary Fund the runaround on the economic reforms required to unlock a $3 billion bailout. One of the conditions is to give small depositors access to their savings.
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From left to right, Lega leader Matteo Salvini, Brothers leader Giorgia Meloni, and former Italian PM and Forza Italia leader Silvio Berlusconi.
How will the far right run Italy?
On Sept. 25, Italians head to the polls to vote in a snap parliamentary election triggered by the collapse of PM Mario Draghi's fragile coalition government in late July. Political instability and short-lived governments are nothing new in Italy, which has churned through 18 of them in the past 34 years. Now, though, an alliance of far-right parties is widely favored to win power for the first time since the end of World War II in a country with bitter memories of fascist rule. What will that government look like, and what can we expect from it? We asked Eurasia Group analyst Federico Santi.
What would a far-right government look like?
It'll probably be a coalition led by the far-far-right Brothers (Fratelli d’Italia) Party, with the far-right Lega and the center-right Forza Italia parties as junior partners. If the Brothers and Lega do extremely well, there’s a chance they could do without Forza Italia (probably the smaller of the three), but this is unlikely, and they sort of come as a package.
Who would lead it?
The smart money is on Giorgia Meloni, Brothers’ shrewd leader, since the deal is that whichever party wins the most votes gets to pick the prime minister. Brothers will most likely win the most votes (and seats) of the three, and probably of any party in fact. The next PM need not be the leader of the party; in fact, looking at the last few years, prime ministers come and go every 1-2 years on average, but party leaders tend to be more durable. So it’s possible that Meloni could select another high-profile figure for the post, contenting herself to run the show from the sidelines. But she has recently dispelled this, signaling very clearly that she has her eye on the top job.
What would it mean for migration?
Given the structural drivers of migration (population growth, climate change, drought, food prices, food insecurity), the problem is only going to get worse. With chronic instability in Libya, and an unpoliceable border at sea, Italy cannot rely on Europe’s time-tested methods of co-opting autocrats to police migration flows from Algeria, Egypt, or Turkey.
Lega boss Matteo Salvini was Italy's interior minister from 2018 to 2019, when his party briefly ruled the country in a coalition with the populist 5-Star movement after the 2018 election. So we have an idea of what that looks like: generate as much noise as possible while shifting as much of the blame as possible to the EU for what is in fact a largely intractable problem. In practice, this may involve denying safe harbor and rescue rights for migrants in waters under Italian jurisdiction, while clamoring for a more equitable distribution of asylum-seekers in the EU, and more EU funding to deal with the issue – neither of which is likely.
The other option, to which Italy has resorted with some success in the past, is paying off Libyan militias to police flows — effectively holding tens of thousands of migrants in jails and internment camps, usually in appalling conditions.
What about relations with the EU?
Meloni has so far been careful to come across as moderate and as a credible partner, including vis-à-vis Brussels and Washington. None of the three parties wants to ditch the euro, let alone the EU. Having seen what the Eurozone debt crisis meant for Greece, they are not keen to go down that road, and probably won’t openly antagonize the EU initially.
However, Brothers and Lega remain fundamentally populist nationalist parties. Their basic instinct will be to reject unpopular demands from Brussels if they go counter to their electoral interests, or to foster and leverage anti-EU sentiment to shore up support for their cause in the face of a faltering economy.
Despite the leadership’s moderate turn, Brothers’ base remains rooted in the far-right, as do its rank-and-file lawmakers. Competition within the coalition also has the potential to lead to a dangerous race to the bottom, notably between Lega and Brothers — who are competing for the same electorate to some extent. Indeed, this was arguably one of the main structural factors leading to Draghi’s downfall.
Also, the fringe Italexit party — which does want Italy out of the EU — will probably meet the 3% of the vote threshold to enter parliament. Although it'll likely remain out of the coalition, Lega and Brothers will have a new competitor to contend with outside government as well.
Lastly, the broader macroeconomic context is also unhelpful. Rising inflation will prompt greater demands for fiscal stimulus and salary increases across the board, which the government will struggle to manage.
What would it do with Draghi’s stalled reforms to get EU pandemic recovery cash?
Many of the reforms required for the December review have already been legislated, so in a sense, the hard work is done. However, in most cases, the government still has to issue the legislation necessary to actually implement the reforms, which will be difficult to do by the end of the year. So the December tranche (just under 1% of GDP) of EU money will at the very least be delayed well into 2023, with direct repercussions for Italy's economic growth outlook.
Going forward, the reforms calendar will suffer, and further disbursements will also be at risk. There is also a chance the new government might want to renegotiate parts of the Recovery Plan, which could lead to further delays.
Do these far-right parties stand a better or worse chance of getting along compared to previous coalition governments?
Italy’s complex electoral system gives electoral coalitions a big advantage over parties running individually. Lega and Forza Italia formed part of Draghi’s national unity coalition. Meanwhile, Brothers had been leading the opposition and climbed steadily in the polls as a result, mainly at Lega’s expense. Yet, true to form, the three quickly closed ranks once elections were triggered, and announced they would run as a bloc.
Going forward, they also have strong incentives to keep the coalition together, though competition between them could have important implications for the policy outlook. Only a significant decline in support for any of the three parties could increase the risk of another snap election.