ROME — A growing number of Italians say they have been abandoned by the European Union — once again — in the midst of what government officials are calling their country’s biggest crisis since World War II,
Analysts predict that the COVID-19 pandemic will have political and strategic aftershocks for years to come. Among the early fallout are waves of suspicion and bad feelings across the European Union. As borders close, solidarity in the 27-nation bloc is hard to find.
Sixty-three years ago, Italy was one of six founding members of what evolved into the European Union, and Italians were among the union’s most enthusiastic supporters until recent years. Bitter feelings have only accelerated as Italians reel from one of the world’s deadliest outbreaks of the coronavirus.
“There’s a segment of the Italian population that believes the European Union has turned its back on Italy when the country needed help the most,” said Francesco Galietti, a co-founder of Policy Sonar, a political risk consultancy. “There was the global credit crisis that hit Italy in 2011, then the illegal migration problems of the last few years. Now it’s the coronavirus.”
The number of infections has reached 110,574, including 13,155 deaths, the Italian Civil Protection Department reported Wednesday. Of those originally infected nationwide, 16,847 had fully recovered by Wednesday, up from 15,729 on Tuesday. The Reuters news agency reported 4,035 people in intensive care, up from 4,023.
Recent weeks have been difficult on several fronts for the EU, which is struggling to adjust to the United Kingdom’s wrenching departure in January.
As the virus spread across the Continent, many EU members resurrected long-abandoned border control stations and the European Commission jettisoned fiscal rules meant to keep the euro currency stable. Newspaper editorials have asked about the role of the 27-nation alliance as infection rates and death tolls soared.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage Italy. The country is now in its third week of a complete lockdown, and the national death toll has risen to those of Spain and China combined. Spain and China are next on that grim tally. The breakdown of the overloaded health care system has become a cautionary tale for governments around the world that just now are facing peak infection rates.
Even before the coronavirus outbreak, the Italian government was on unstable footing because of slow economic growth and clashes between the main parties supporting pro-EU Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.
But the crisis has helped reverse that trend. Mr. Conte’s approval ratings have surged despite some missteps in the early days of the national lockdown. According to the polling firm Demos, nearly three out of four Italians approve of the job Mr. Conte is doing. He now has the highest number of any Italian head of government in more than a decade.
“As long as the crisis remains a health issue, Conte’s government will be fine,” Mr. Galietti said. “But if it starts to morph into a socio-economic issue, that could easily change.”
Economic drag
Italy has yet to feel the full economic drag of the coronavirus crisis, and the early projections are grim.
The Italian economy was the weakest in the European Union before the crisis hit and now has ground to a halt with almost all “nonessential” factories and offices closed. A report released last week by the Economist Intelligence Unit projected that Italy’s economy, which had been predicted to grow a paltry 0.5% this year before the start of the outbreak, will now contract by at least 7.5%. The 8 percentage point swing was the largest predicted in Europe as a result of the crisis.
Many economists foresee a wave of bankruptcies once the government lifts its six-month state of emergency.
Forecasters are warning that the Italian government cannot afford the stimulus funds needed to reach the desired effect.
The government plans to spend around $55 billion to reduce the economic impacts of the crisis. Germany, with an economy about twice the size of Italy’s, plans to spend 15 times more: $825 billion. The U.S., whose economy is 10 times the size of Italy’s, is spending more than $2 trillion.
“I think the economic worries make people anxious, and that kind of anxiety translates to politics,” said Riccardo Puglisi, an economist at the University of Pavia. “I don’t predict big political changes for the moment, but that is something that could change very quickly.”
Rome may be seeing the light. Economy and Finance Minister Roberto Gualtieri told the newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano on Wednesday that fiscal measures being prepared would be “significantly larger” than the current package and that the idea is to tide over households and businesses for the duration of the pandemic.
But even the economic rescue effort has provoked tensions with the EU. Germany and the Netherlands are resisting proposed fixed-income “corona bonds” meant to finance the spending spree.
Populists set to pounce
Waiting in the wings: the anti-migrant, euroskeptic Northern League party, led by populist former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. Polls show the Northern League is the largest single political party in Italy, though it remains in opposition to the center-left coalition supporting the Conte government.
The ambitious, charismatic Mr. Salvini is gambling that Mr. Conte will stumble at some point during the crisis and appears to be biding his time until that happens.
“First, let’s beat the virus, and then we can think about Europe again,” Mr. Salvini said via social media. “If necessary, we will say goodbye [to the European Union] without even saying thank you.”
Fabio Rampelli, vice president of the lower house of Italy’s parliament and a member of Brothers of Italy, which is aligned with Mr. Salvini’s League, went further Tuesday. He posted a video on social media of himself taking the EU flag off his office wall. “Maybe we’ll see you later. Maybe,” he said.
The risks are not lost on Mr. Conte, who has warned about a rise in anti-EU sentiment amid a wave of memes, videos and social media hashtags arguing that the EU’s major powers have again ignored Italy in its time of need.
Italian media have highlighted non-EU countries, including global powers China and Russia and poorer countries such as Cuba and Albania, that have sent doctors, consultants and supplies to Italy. The EU bureaucracy in Brussels, meanwhile, is mired in technical talks about buying government debt in order to keep interest rates low and whether issuing corona bonds is a good idea.
“If the EU does not live up to its role in this historical situation, will citizens have more confidence in it or will they permanently lose it?” Mr. Conte asked.
Carlo Altomonte, an economist specializing in international trade at Milan’s Bocconi University, said the EU institutions are doing what they can to help economically, even if the steps are not obvious to the average Italian.
“Between various mechanisms, the European Central Bank is providing more than $1 trillion in the form of the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program and other initiatives,” Mr. Altomonte said. “This is what it should be doing. Some people are complaining that Europe is not there, but it is there.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has tried to mend fences with Italy. She noted Wednesday on Twitter that she had spoken with Mr. Conte and praised Rome’s efforts to preserve jobs during the crisis.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.