Franco-German divorce? It’s time to start talking about France and Italy

The Franco-German motor may be stalling but the Franco-Italian relationship is heating up. Though the two governments have very different outlooks, this conflict actually hides the great extent to which the political landscapes in the two countries are starting to merge. The leadership roles of Matteo Salvini and Emmanuel Macron in their respective political camps mean it would be easy to assume that the battle over Europe is being fought at the border between the two states. The reality, in fact, is that the frontline runs through the heart of both France and Italy. In structural and policy terms, France and Italy are becoming closer than ever and should the two countries’ governments end up aligning in the early 2020s, this could be a decisive force in shaping Europe’s future.

Let’s start with the big picture political realignment that we have seen in both these states. In recent years French and Italian politics has increasingly moved away from a left-right axis (even if this still exists) and towards a progressive-nationalist axis. The government in France (La République En Marche) and the main opposition in Italy (the Partito Democratico) are aligned in facing off against the government in Italy (Lega notably) and the main opposition in France (the Rassemblement National). Importantly this is not simply an external analysis imposed on unwitting actors, it is a viewpoint that all parties have at times promoted themselves. A rhetoric focussing on an existential battle for the future of Europe between the progressives and the nationalists is easily found in both France and Italy. In addition, it is a political division that naturally focuses on Europe but also extends to other areas like the advancement of LGBT rights or the fight against climate change. And the links between these parties go deeper than a simple convergence of ideas - they are actively cooperating too. Just recently, Lega and the Rassemblement National both announced that they would be forming a new group in the European Parliament - the European Alliance of Peoples and Nations. Along with the German AfD, these parties will undoubtedly form the core and the leadership of this new grouping that will likely emerge as the fourth-biggest after the European elections at the end of May. The progressive camp for their part have not made any such big commitments but are nonetheless still clearly building up their links to one another. La République En Marche has Sandro Gozi, the former Europe Minister in the last Italian government, on its candidate list for the upcoming elections and the Partito Democratico is in turn running Caterina Avanza, a high-profile member of En Marche’s European elections campaign, on their list. It is also worth considering that Macron has made no secret of his desire to form a new group in the European Parliament too, mostly based on the current liberal centrist grouping, but aiming to pull in defectors from the centre-left and centre-right. It is hard to imagine that La République En Marche wouldn’t at least try to entice the Partito Democratico and its notably pro-Europe leader, Nicola Zingaretti.

Beyond the structure of the political landscape, the two countries are also showing a tendency to focus on the same debates, using the same terms. Out of all major EU states, France and Italy are the ones most focused on events in Libya, and in North Africa more broadly. The two countries are backing competing regimes in Libya and are blaming each other for the recent deterioration in the country which has been gripped by instability since the fall of the dictator Muammar Ghaddafi. Their concern with different factions is largely dictated by the geographic location of their strategic interests. While France is looking to the centre and East of the country, Italy is engaged in the Western part. Libya is a former colony of Italy but France has long considered itself involved in the affairs of North Africa generally since the colonisation and incorporation of Algeria into the French state. Paris and Rome are both seeking to be important players in the brokering of any peace and are having parallel debates on the best way to deal with the military conflict in Libya and the resulting refugee flows (and usually reserving for each other the blame for any failures). Their shared, more southward-facing, strategic worldview could not be more at odds with the relative disinterest of countries like Germany.

On the eurozone, France and Italy are again having much the same conversations. There is a clear desire to reform the governance of the eurozone and to allow for greater public spending at the European level. Italy may be the one coming close to openly flouting the rules on fiscal limits and publicly attacking the system but France has hardly been a saint either – it’s debt to GDP ratio is high and the deficit has been allowed to grow in response to populist pressures. Macron would be just as happy as Salvini to see greater investment spending and so would many politicians across the board in France and Italy. Indeed it is Macron who has been pushing for the eurozone to have its own budget. Neither country is as attached to the fiscal limits as, say, Germany or the Netherlands, and neither will change that view any time soon. Both have issues with Germany’s hawkish approach to the eurozone and both would likely agree that the lack of German spending has been detrimental to their economies. France is much more likely to try and use charm to get its way while the Italian government has regularly come out all guns blazing against the eurozone fiscal limits but the reality is that both are committed to pushing for broadly similar changes from the inside. Once we get away from the very different approaches in terms of political style, France and Italy have interests that are highly aligned.

For the moment, this merging of France and Italy’s politics is unlikely to change much. Their respective governments are not at all friendly and opposition between the two has become so common as to be unremarkable. Even if their shared interests should push them together, they quite simply do not want to cooperate. Yet beneath this animosity there is a wider societal shift. They may not always agree on the conclusions, but their analysis of the key debates that need to be had and what the respective opposing sides are in these debates are strikingly similar. France and Italy’s politics is merging and it is surely only a matter of time before the governments change one way or the other. Either a presidential election in France in 2022 leading to a nationalist taking power or a parliamentary election in Italy in 2023 bringing in a progressive majority could bring them into complete alignment. For France in particular, German rebukes and political stagnation will provide a major incentive to find a new best friend. Politics no longer ends at the alpine border and if either of these scenarios played out then it would not be hard to imagine that, for better or for worse, this duo would be a major force in driving the EU’s policies.

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