Marco Brunazzo

Federalizing Italy: The Convergent Effects of Europeanization and Domestic Mobilization

On 7 October 2001, 16,257,606 Italian voters went to the polls to vote in a referendum on the reform of those articles of the constitution (n.114, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 127) concerned with the relations between the central state and the regions. The reform was introduced by the parliament one year before in ‘double reading’. As the constitution expressly declaims (art. 138), constitutional amendment may be required to pass through popular scrutiny, if approved by parliament in the second reading with an absolute majority and not a qualified majority of 2/3 of MPs. In fact, the parliamentary opposition to the amendments raised the required number of citizens’ signatures within three months of the publication of the constitutional amendments as required by the same article 138 of the constitution, to call for a popular referendum to confirm the new law. Once the referendum has been called, 10,434,419 voters (64.2%) approved the amendments, where 5,819,187 (35.8%) rejected it. It was the first referendum on constitutional change in the Italian post-Second World War history. The amendments imply specific exclusive legislative powers for the national state (in its traditional domain); concurrent legislation between the national state and the regions in crucial domains for the former; and allocation of the remaining policy responsibilities to the regions. The reform, nevertheless, does not introduce a chamber of regional representation. Thus, the Italian unitary state has been significantly reformed in the direction of a more decentralized territorial organization (see Table 1). With the success of the referendum, the process of federalization of the Italian state has made a step forward. Why did it happen? Our answer is the following. The constitutional reform of the Italian unitary state has been the outcome of a happy combination of two pressures, one from Europe and another from domestic actors. To develop this argument, we shall proceed as follows. First, we give a brief description of the evolution of the territorial organization of the Italian state, in order to show the

New Members in Old Institutions: The Impact of Enlargement on the Committee of the Regions

All EU institutions have recently faced the challenge of enlargement, the impact of which has not been limited to a change in the number of officials present or languages utilized. The transformation called into question the capacity of the common institutions to maintain an institutional identity and to absorb new members, integrating them properly into the institutional structures and procedures. The Committee of the Regions (CoR) is distinguished among the EU institutions for the broad range and variety of interests represented, a feature often identified as an obstacle for the smooth and effective work of the institution. In this context, the process of enlargement, which has substantially increased the CoRs membership and made the diversity of interests even broader, inevitably triggers the expectation of a growing degree of conflict in the Committees internal policy-making process. The working hypothesis here is that enlargement has increased the level of internal conflict in the CoR and contributed to a further split of interests and the creation of new interest groups.

The right sweeps the board

Abstract The Italian general elections of 13–14 April 2008 probably marked a decisive shift in Italian politics. The clear victory gained by the centre–right was accompanied by the re-emergence of the Lega Nord, while the Democratic Party saw it support increase only marginally and the communists will no longer be present in the forthcoming parliament. The most pressing issues facing the new government include poor–weak economic growth, the tensions between liberalism and protectionism and Italys relations with Europe.

Negotiating the regulation of the structural funds: Italian actors in EU regional policy‐making

The role of Italy in the reform process of the regulations concerning EU regional policy has traditionally been weak. Since 1998, however, Italian actors in Brussels started to play an increasingly more central role. Looking at the 1998 Regulation, we analyse the internal and external factors that explain this improved performance and conclude that this change might lead to an even more active and creative role being adopted by Italian institutional actors in the current negotiations which will lead to the reform of the regulation of the Structural Funds for 2007–13.

Mission Impossible? Verisimilitude in EU Simulations

Verisimilitude is a key feature of every simulation. After describing the key features and learning objectives of our simulations through a recent case study on EU negotiations, we explain how we strive to ensure verisimilitude, and we discuss the limits of our approach. From our experience, four elements in simulations of EU negotiations that aspire to verisimilitude are essential: reliance on original documentation and on the real procedural rules, the representation of non-institutional actors in the process, the availability of IT tools to allow near-real social media activities and the opportunity to exchange views with the actual negotiators during or at the end of the exercise.

Insurgents against Brussels: Euroscepticism and the right-wing populist turn of the Lega Nord since 2013

Abstract Under the leadership of Matteo Salvini, the Lega Nord has shifted away from its previous political identity as a voice for Italy’s north and has placed hostility towards the policies and institutions of the European Union (EU) at the heart of its rhetoric. Nowadays, the enemy is Rome no longer: it is Brussels, European institutions, and the threat to the national sovereignty posed by the EU. Borrowing from the Italian political philosopher Nicola Matteucci, we would describe Salvini’s Lega as a ‘populist insurgency’. That is to say, it is a populist party that marries the traditional populist evocation of the virtues of the people against the corrupt elites, with a pervasive glibness of analysis.