Italy and the Euro Crisis Negotiations: The Reluctant Europeanist?

The Eurozone crisis represented a critical juncture for almost all South European countries. Italy makes no exception in this regard. Due to time pressure and to the imminent threat to government creditworthiness represented by the so-called ‘spread’ – the yield difference between 10-years Italian and German government bonds – during the Euro crisis negotiations (2010-2015) Italy had to make concessions accepting stricter budgetary discipline, with a very limited involvement of the parliament especially in the first phase of the crisis. An empirical analysis of specialized press and official documents suggests that four contested issues have been remarkably salient to EU countries as a whole and to Southern EU countries in particular: 1) the willingness to support Greece financially in early 2010; 2) the size of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM); 3) the legal nature of the ‘debt brake’ rule contained in the so-called ‘Fiscal Compact’ as part of the TSCG; and 4) the new decision-making procedure to adopt sanctions in the context of the Stability and Growth Pact, i.e. the introduction of the so-called ‘Reverse Qualified Majority Voting’. Looking at these issues, and relying on primary data collected via face-to-face interviews with former decision-makers and negotiators, the paper will show how in the bargaining process focusing on the reform of EU fiscal and financial governance Italy was caught between its ‘Europeanist’, sovra-nationalist tradition and a more pragmatic approach aimed at maintaining as much political leeway as possible. In the context of a research project which has won the competitive call HORIZON 2020 “EURO-1-2014” , entitled “The Choice for Europe since Maastricht : Member States' Preferences for Economic and Fiscal Integration”, this paper presents the results of an empirical investigation on the preferences of Italy and the politics of the Euro crisis.