Italy's Foreign Policy in the Twenty-first Century

A Contested Nature?

Ludovica Marchi, Richard Whitman, Geoffrey Edwards, Ludovica Marchi, Richard Whitman, Geoffrey Edwards

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317594741
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Italy's foreign policy has often been dismissed as too idiosyncratic, inconsistent and lacking ambition.

This book offers new insights into the position Italy has attained in the international community in the 21st century. It explores how the country has sought to take advantage of its passage from a bipolar to a multipolar system and assesses the ways in which it has engaged internationally, its new responsibilities, and the manner in which it conducts its policies in the pursuit of its interests, whether political or commercial. It argues that although Italy is engaged internationally, there is a gap between its actions and what it actually delivers, and as long as this gap continues Italy is likely to remain a partial and unreliable foreign policy actor. Divided into three parts, this book explores:

• the context and processes which characterise Italy's external action
• its relations with crucial countries and regions such as the US, the EU, and the BRICs
• its security and defence policies.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of European Politics, Foreign Policy analysis and Italian studies.

Part I

Context and processes

1 Italy in a wide framework

Federico Eichberg

In the last two decades, Italy has experienced a significant restructuring of its expected ‘peace dividend’ after the end of the Cold War. During the first decade following the end of the bipolar confrontation, with the world attempting to progressively overcome the numerous barriers erected during the previous decades, the potentially global role and ‘vision’ of Italy has been limited by certain structural obstacles: an asymmetric institutional reform that has led to a fragmentation between central and local powers; a progressive decrease of geopolitical relevance in the new post-Cold-War scenarios, the end of the ‘monetary boost’ (Lira devaluation) as a tool of competitiveness in the international trade, and the missed opportunity of dimensional growth in the industrial sector. Italy has pursued a strategy aimed at its inclusion in prestigious multilateral fora (the so called ‘strategy of the dining power’ at the UN Security Council, EU, G8, etc.) and projection in emerging markets. The second post-Cold-War decade, characterised by a deep crisis of the multilateral system and a ‘selective globalisation’ of newly created barriers and dangerously ill-defined liquid alliances, has seen Italy taking risks and defining new priorities. This chapter argues that Italy needs to focus on a few clear priorities, both internally and externally, in order to become a hub for the infrastructure sector, particularly energy and shipping, in the Mediterranean area and stretching across Asia to India and China (as terminal of the ‘Chindoterranean’ route), to stimulate competitiveness and growth of its small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to attract foreign direct investment, and to promote and protect Intellectual Property Rights, especially regarding the ‘made in Italy’ brand.

Italy’s contemporary ‘global’ vocation and international dimension sum up the potentialities and contradictions of its pre- and post-unitary history, centred around its unification as a nation. On the one hand, in fact, the legacy of the rule by long-lasting ‘regional powers’ such as Rome, Venice, and Genoa, the heritage of centuries of foreign domination on the Peninsula and the ‘undefined’/multidimensional location (both European and Mediterranean) have shaped Italy as a very diverse nation (Clark 1984). On the other hand its controversial national awakening in the XIX Century was characterised by a sudden acceleration of the unification process, led mainly by the northern Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont, but with a delayed consolidation of national interests and military assets (Mammarella and Cacace 2006). As a result Millions of Italians decided to flee the newborn country at the end of the XIX century, thus creating a meaningful ‘Italy abroad’ with strong transatlantic ties and (as an indirect effect) exacerbating some internal tensions especially regarding the integration and development of the southern part of the peninsula (the unsolved Questione Meridionale, the ‘Southern Question’). Finally the domestic relevance of universal and international visions, namely Catholicism and Communism, the political manifestations of which accounted for about 70 per cent of the electorate and the two largest parties in the parliament, resulted in a multipolar international agenda.

All of the above mentioned factors significantly complicated the setting of clear priorities for Italy in the international framework. But, paradoxically, during the Cold War, Italy’s multipolar orientation and lack of defined objectives resulted as an asset. The peculiarity of Italy’s situation facilitated a balance of power among the diverse orientations and loyalties to three main ‘circles of interest’: its European allies, the United States, and non-Western actors. In these relations Italy played a role – in the meantime – of good ally and autonomous interlocutor. For example, in the first circle, other EU nations regarded Italy as a country strongly in favour of European integration, as embodied by figures such as Alcide De Gasperi and Altiero Spinelli, exemplified by the signing in Rome of the European Communities Treaty in 1957. In the meantime, however, Italy was very often inconsistent in its implementation of European provisions, ranking as the country with the most infringements of European rules and regulations for decades. Vis à vis the second circle (a circle of ‘transatlantic security’), Italy was considered a reliable, but not submissive, partner. While showing some significant autonomy in episodes such as the Sigonella crisis in October 1985 (when Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi refused US President Ronald Reagan’s request to extradite the hijackers of the cruise ship Achille Lauro), or its choice of ‘neutrality’ in the 1973 Yom Kippur War (when Rome refused the Americans the use of its military bases to assist Israel), Italy showed its ‘pro western’ consistency allowing the deployment of missiles in 1958 and 1982, and accepting a significant US military presence, centred on a 1952 agreement on military bases. It is not surprising that, after 40 years of active Atlantism, Reagan pushed for Italy’s admission into the circle of the most industrialised nations during the 1986 G7 summit in Tokyo. In the meantime, vis à vis the third ‘circle’ of relations (the non-Western actors, either on the opposite side of the Iron Curtain or separated by the cultural cleavage of the Mediterranean), Italy developed a dynamic of ‘creative policies,’ an updated edition of the imaginative ‘tour de waltzer’ that Prime Minister von Bülow stigmatised at the dawn of the last century.¹ This came in the form of initiatives in the Arab-Mediterranean region, in the Soviet Bloc and in the Third World, promoted (quite discreetely) by central institutions and (more openly) by local levels, especially in the form of ‘twinnings’ between municipalities coming from areas such as the ‘Red regions’ of Emilia Romagna, Tuscany and Umbria. Episodes like President Gronchi’s attempt to establish a preferential dialogue with the USSR (1960), Fanfani and La Pira’s efforts to extend Italy’s influence in the Mediterranean, Saragat, Nenni and Moro’s commitment in re-establishing relations with China (Brundu 2004) were all part of this third ‘circle’, which complemented the ‘official’ circles of economic growth with Europe and security with the Atlantic partners. A dualism (officially allied with western liberal-democracies but unofficially in relation with the communist/‘non aligned’ side) mirrored internally by the paradoxical relation between the two major parties, the Christian Democratic (DC) and the Communist (PCI). While in May 1947, the DC leader decided, as part of an alignment to the new American strategy of containment, the official breakdown of the coalition (established at the end of the Second World War) between the Christian Democrats and the Communists, this attitude was ‘compensated’ – throughout the decades – by a bevy of laws passed by the Parliament proposed by the Christian Democrats with either abstention or favourable vote of the Communist party (between 1979 and 1994, as the Italian debt doubled, the percentage of laws passed with this DC-PCI entente reached the 80.7 per cent of the total amount of laws passed by the Italian Parliament).

Post-1989 and the limited peace dividend

With this background of both ‘reliability’ and ‘flexibility’ Italy entered the post-bipolar world of non-ideological relations and multilateral ties with high potential due to its traditional ‘frontier instinct’ and ‘multi-latitude’ approach. Notwithstanding these potentials, Italy suffered in the first decade of the transition (1990–2000) due to some ‘structural’ critical elements, thus missing out on the potentially positive outcomes resulting from the onset of a world increasingly ‘without barriers’, a truly liberalised market deriving from the GATT Uruguay Round launched in 1986 and the end of ideological oppositions (fall of the Soviet Union, 1991). As mentioned the expected outcomes have been limited by a series of controversial issues that emerged during this first transition decade:

a Lack of structural reforms by the various governments of the so called ‘Second Republic’ after 1992. Italy was unable to make strong decisions to deal a public debt of 1.9 trillion Euros, which required annual interest payments of 80 billion Euros, equivalent to 5 per cent of GDP, and ate up significant resources that could have been otherwise destined for structural investments. This burden didn’t help Italy’s standing vis à vis rating agencies, potential foreign investors or the EU.

b The progressive devolution of decision-making powers culminated in the constitutional reform. Sub-national level organisms (above all, the regions), became the main protagonists regarding both domestic and foreign policies, interpreting very assertively their role, thus representing a weakening factor in terms of coordinated ‘decisional power’ vis à vis external challenges (changing geopolitical scenarios, turbocapitalism, economic crisis). As a result, the past years have seen stumbling domestic disputes that range from discussions on strategic infrastructures to territorial marketing policies, to environmental issues that paralised most development efforts, all of which affected Italy’s relevance on the international stage.

c The loss of geopolitical relevance, following the end of the bipolar system (1991), and the end of the Balkan Wars (1991–1999). With the new global dimension of security, not linked to the East/West confrontation, Italy lost the strategic, geopolitical border position that, together with the constant threat of internal ‘neutralist influences’ (i.e. the presence of the largest Communist party in Western Europe), guaranteed Italy a certain measure of constant ‘forgiveness’, a sort of ‘impunity’ of action from its western allies. In the transition years Italy had to re-think its geopolitical role and could no longer act as ‘consumer of security’ under a western umbrella.

d The country lost an asset of competitiveness when new economic and commercial rules were established in the mid-1990s. Although Italy’s percentage of international trade rose steadily in the decades following World War II, reaching a peak in 1995 of 4.5 per cent, it fell significantly after the creation of the WTO that year. Commercial rules were also redefined and ‘competitive devaluations’ of the Italian lira were no longer allowed after Italy joined the European Monetary Union in 1996. Italy progressively lost weight in international trade. The onset of new, emerging, labour-intensive players on the global economic scene and their progressive accession to the WTO had a decisive effect on Italy because of its significant reliance on the manufacturing and agricultural industries that were heavily exposed to competition from emerging economies.

e These critical factors, all with an eminently public nature, were accompanied by a lack of private industrial development: the slogan ‘small is beautiful’ remained very popular throughout the decades in a country where 95 per cent of enterprises count less than 10 employees. As a consequence these ‘micro’ enterprises suffered the competition and resulted unfit to deal with the global market.

These ‘critical elements’ reduced the return that Italy could and should have gained from its newly acquired strategic relevance in neighbouring areas such as Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Middle East and the Mediterranean, the so called ‘peace dividend’ (Incisa di Camerana 1996) – in the regions of the third ‘circle’, an area of ‘creative policies’, hardly accessible in an ‘official’, transparent way during the Cold War. These areas would have been ideal subjects for Italy’s ‘fine-tuned’ international projection and its role as a long-term payer (inter alia in the energy field) rather than a long-term player and therefore less obstructed by historical colonial burdens (with the exception of Libya).

During the decade of transition following the Cold War, Italy tried to mitigate these critical factors by consolidating ‘politically’ its two traditional pillars of Atlantic/security alliances and European/economic growth concerns, while building a strong commercial pillar towards the South and the East: on its two ‘western’ fronts, Europe and America, Italy acted with the aim of preserving or obtaining a seat at the international table as a confirmation of power and relevance (the so called chair politics or politics of the ‘dining power’) at settings such as the G8, the UN Security Council, the QUINT on the Balkans, the Club of 4 major European Union countries, NATO, etc.). Towards the East and the South, Italy aimed to transform ‘creativity’ into a significant international export brand, aimed mainly at emerging markets. Despite importing much in the way of energy resources, Italy consolidated its commercial position as second largest trading partner with the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China), after Germany, thanks to the performance of its leading industrial sectors known as the ‘4 As’, in Italian, Automazione (automation), Agroalimentare (agriculture), Arredo (furniture), Abbigliamento (fashion), mainly centred in a wide network of industrial clusters, counting more than 100 all over the peninsula.

Italy in a world of selective globalization

The second decade of transition starting in 2001 has been characterised by a changing scenario of international relations. The post-9/11 world has witnessed a deep crisis of multilateral fora and related governance: a scenario of low intensity military actions led by coalitions of the willing, ‘liquid’ alliances based on a case-by-case approach and the long-term vocabulary of globalisation (‘millennium goals’, ‘Doha Development Agenda’, ‘global warming’, ‘cap and trade’, etc.) turned into a short-term, local agenda. With the decline of multilateral institutions, Italy has found itself in an ever-changing world of ‘selective globalization’, newly created barriers and dangerously ill-defined and shifting alliances.

In this world of new risks and opportunities, the Western-oriented ‘circle’ of Italian foreign policy has entered into a deep crisis of leadership and resources, with declining power and influence on the global agenda and suffering from the limits of their post-modern approach in a highly competitive area. The ‘dogma’ of post-modernity (Cooper 2000), that characterised the last decades of the XXth century in Europe, is based on the idea that with the end of the bipolar confrontation the political systems of three centuries came to an end in Europe: the system based either on hegemony (an Empire and the neighbours, benefiting from its civilisation and protection) or on balance (a system of counter-balancing alliances). According to Cooper,

the main characteristics of the postmodern world are as follows: the breaking down of the distinction between domestic and foreign affairs; Mutual interference in (traditional) domestic affairs and mutual surveillance; The rejection of force for resolving disputes and the consequent codification of self-enforced rules of behavior; The growing irrelevance of borders: this has come about both through the changing role of the state, but also through missiles, motor cars and satellites. Security is based on transparency, mutual openness, interdependence and mutual vulnerability.

The conception of an International Criminal Court is a striking example of the postmodern breakdown of the distinction between domestic and foreign affairs. In the postmodern world, raison d’état and the amorality of Machiavelli’s theories of statecraft, which defined international relations in the modern era, have been replaced by a moral consciousness that applies to international relations as well as to domestic affairs...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Notes on contributors
• Introduction
• Part I Context and processes
• Part II Italy in a new global order
• Part III Perspectives on security and defence policies
• Index