Spain and Italy currently have a feature in common: a high share of social disgust. 74% of Spaniards declared themselves dissatisfied with the political and economic situation in their country with nine months to go before the end of the legislature. And 71% of Italians share that same pessimism, five months after having opened a legislature with an Executive headed by a political force (the post-fascist right) that had not governed before. Spain and Italy have not yet recovered from the wounds and bruises of the latest economic crisis.
Only 24% of Italians declare themselves optimistic about the future. Optimistic Spaniards add up to 26%. (The average political optimism in the European Union is currently estimated at 28%). Within this apparently funereal picture, 69% of Italians and Spaniards say they are very or quite happy, in perfect agreement with the European average. Public discomforts, private satisfactions.
These are data from Ipsos Italia, the largest polling company in the neighboring country, presented by the political scientist Nando Pagnoncelli last Thursday night at the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome, during the 19th Italy-Spain Forum that has just take place under the direction of Enrico Letta and Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida. The Christian Democrat school launched these meetings in 1999 as a civil initiative to support relations between the two countries, relations that are much more complex than it may seem. There are no major disputes, but there are many sidelong glances.
Italy continues to practice catenaccio in its internal market and does everything possible to ensure that foreign capital does not occupy strategic positions, as the French and Germans well know. It is unthinkable to imagine that Spanish companies could have the interesting position of Italian capital in Spain today: two television channels (Telecinco and Cuatro), a newspaper intensely dedicated to political combat (El Mundo), an economic newspaper (Expansión), an important company energy (Endesa, owned by Enel, public electricity company) and a business bank (Mediobanca). Italy influences Spain more than vice versa.
There are Italian politicians who are vocally in favor of a greater understanding with Spain on the southern European flank. Romano Prodi and Enrico Letta are two unequivocal exponents of this line. Giuseppe Conte was helped by Pedro Sánchez in the negotiation of the European funds in July 2020. Other recent leaders, such as Matteo Renzi, Mario Monti and Mario Draghi, have had third place on the European podium and the direct route as their absolute priority with Berlin, Paris and Washington, clearly suspicious of Spain. Giorgia Meloni, prime minister for five months, with dialogue problems with Paris at the moment, is still a question mark. In the electoral campaign, her reference Spanish party is Vox. The ideological antagonism with Sánchez could lead, however, to hasty conclusions.
Spain has just received a third disbursement of European funds (6,000 million) and Italy has had the payment of 19,000 million temporarily suspended due to problems in its reconstruction plan. Meloni needs to open doors and Sánchez wants to shine in Europe in the coming months. Tomorrow they meet in Rome.
