Italy

Yearbook

    The Italian Vote and the Problem of a New Left Political Entity
  • The results of the recent European Parliament elections raise more questions than they answer. Almost all opinion polls and forecasts, even those based on refined socio-political analyses, have shown that people in Italy feel extremely alienated from political reality. The Italian vote is...
    The Left in Italy
  • In Italy, the left which emerged after 1989 is undergoing a profound restructuring. For the third time, the party created by the majority of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) is changing its name and symbol, fusing with the centrist “Margherita” party consisting for the most part of members of the...
    Immigration Policies in Italy – Rights, Movements and Imprisonment
  • This brief article proposes to do three things: first, to delineate the main features of immigration policies in Italy; second, to evaluate the effects of these features; and third, to outline a concise balance sheet of the political choices made and possible developments   Part one: Entrance...
    The Dilemma of the Italian Left:Origins and Perspectives
  • The Italian left has been an extraordinarily large and important left. In many respects it was an anomaly in the European left – this, both in terms of traditional organisations (a very strong communist party, the PCI, and a socialist party, the PSI, that long cooperated with it) and in terms of...
    Can PIGS Fly?
  • ”Thinking again?” the Duchess asked, with another dig of her sharp little chin. ”I’ve a right to think,” said Alice sharply, for she was beginning to feel a little worried. ”Just about as much right,” said the Duchess, “as pigs have to fly....” Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,...

Focus

    We Condemn the Attack on the CGIL Headquarters
  • During the demonstrations that took place on 9 October in Rome against the Covid-19 health pass, the national headquarters of the Italian General Confederation of Labour (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro, CGIL) were attacked by right-wing forces. The President of the Party of the European...
    The Italian Vote
  • Analysis from our member organisation "transform! italia" on the political landscape in Italy.
    The Italian Left Backing Tsipras
  • The project is called “The Different Europe with Alexis Tsipras” and its name is written on a red background. Predictions indicate it could surpass, maybe even easily, the 4% electoral threshold.

Blog

    May 2023 - Italian Trade Unions Mobilise For a New Era of Labour Rights
  • In Italy this month is marked by successful inter-regional demonstrations organised by the three confederal trade unions. Leopoldo Tartaglia, Secretary of the CGIL-International Department, outlines the crucial role of organised and unified trade union forces in embarking on a new path of general struggles and mobilisations.
    “Brothers of Italy” and the Past to Come
  • "Mussolini's Grandchildren by David Broder, recently published by Pluto Press in London, looks at Italy's self-proclaimed "post-fascist" movements, which have their roots in historical fascism but claim to have "overcome" it. Read a full review by Franco Ferrari.
    Peace in Rome
  • On 5 November, a protest march organised by trade unions, left movements, Catholic groups, and other civil society actors took place in Rome. The giant demonstration for peace with more than a hundred thousand people is an event of enormous importance.
    Italy: The Right Has Won but the System Remains Unstable
  • The results of the 25 September Italian elections confirmed many of the predictions contained in the principal opinion surveys. The right-wing coalition won 44% of votes and within it the party with the most radical tradition, Fratelli d’Italia, led by Giorgia Meloni, prevailed with 26%.
    Prevented in France – Possible in Italy
  • In France, more than 13 million people voted for the presidential candidate Marine Le Pen of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN). In Italy, the post-fascist party Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) is about to take over government in a right-wing alliance with Lega and Forza Italia. How is this possible?
    Sconfinate frontier – Riace, l’eccezione che ha rifiutato la regola
  • The particular experience of democratic self-management of migration developed in Riace, Calabria, is an interesting case study of the possible evolution of the migration phenomenon in the context of three particular aspects of the policies of the last governments that succeeded each other in Italy, all of European and international relevance.
    Enrico Berlinguer and 21st-Century Socialism
  • Secretary of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) from 1972 to 1984, Enrico Berlinguer has been long known for two broad political initiatives he introduced in the 1970s: at the level of domestic politics, the compromesso storico (the historical compromise); and, at the international level, Eurocommunism. On 25 May, we celebrate his 100th birthday.
    Mattadraghismo
  • Italy's President Sergio Mattarella’s re-election has elicited a general sigh of relief on the part of those who trembled at the thought of a mediocre spectacle of ungovernability. Let us, however, analyse some significant open questions on Italy's institutional and social structures.
    Italy’s 2021 Local Elections
  • More than 11 million Italian citizens were eligible to vote for city councils and mayors of municipalities throughout the country – which resulted in significant political changes.
    The Initiative "Move Up 2021"
  • Italy will host the G20 and official meetings will be held in various cities to establish agreements with which the powerful countries of the world will surely continue to fail to address the social and environmental injustice in which we are immersed. The health crisis, climate change,...
    You call it, if you want…evasions
  • Roberto Musacchio on recent investigations showing that the growth of tax evasion in the European Union – evasion leading to tax gaps which exceed the healthcare spending of several EU Member States, ‘often by considerable amounts‘.
    The Virus Hits an Ill-Prepared Europe
  • The healthcare system of the EU country most afflicted by the coronavirus, Italy, has severely suffered from neoliberal cuts and privatisations in recent years. And the health emergency has greatly accelerated the imminent arrival of the next economic emergency. With it we are facing a watershed moment.
    Stop The Reform Of European Stability Mechanism
  • In Italy, a discussion developed, first in the media and then in the parliamentary halls, about the proposed reform of the European Stability Mechanism treaty, which should be approved by Eurozone leaders at the Euro summit on December 13th. The leader of the Northern League sovereign party, Matteo...
    Nothing New Marches On in a ‘De-Leagued’ Italy
  • And so a new government has been formed in Italy – more out of necessity than choice – dictated by the opportunity Matteo Salvini, the League’s leader, handed the Five-Star Movement (M5S) to switch alliances and isolate Salvini and his dreams of dominance.
    A New Humanism? Then Open the Ports to the Immigrants
  • After receiving the mandate to form a new government, the old and new Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, whose Five-Star Movement (M5S) is now entering a coalition with the Partito Democratico (PD), declared: ‘This is the time for a new humanism’. Read the comment by Luciana Castellina.
    Long Live Non Una Di Meno!
  • Non Una Di Meno (Not One Less), an important Italian feminist movement aiming to fight the capitalist and patriarchal system and all forms of sexism and racism, held his national conference. Read about the movement's current discussions ...
    The People’s Budget
  • Breaking with EU austerity politics does not necessarily imply a departure from neoliberal politics. The struggle between EU austerity and ‘popular sovereignty’ is a quandary from which left-wing politics should disengage.
    Italy’s Crisis – Between Farce and Tragedy
  • How will Italy’s political crisis end? Will it precipitate imminent new elections? Will there be a government of ‘populists’? Will there be a brief ‘president’s’ government voted on by almost no one?
    The Breakdown of the Political Framework
  • The results of the Italian general elections which took place on 4 March seem to confirm the breakdown of the previous political framework, which had already occurred in other countries such as Spain, France and partly also in Germany.
    Fear, Loathing and Poverty
  • The post-election map of Italy has two main traits: fear and poverty. Northern and Central regions have gone to a Centre-right coalition where the leader is not anymore Forza Italia’s Silvio Berlusconi but League’s Matteo Salvini, who dropped its previous ‘Lega Nord’ emphasis to turn it into a nationwide Le Pen-style National Front.
    #Power to the People
  • The reconstruction process of the left in Italy has indicated a new benchmark. But to better understand the path, we must start out once again from the last European elections in 2014.
    Abstentionism the Biggest Winner
  • On the left, the results of June’s local elections show that independent civic lists, in which more radical proposals are put forwards, can have gratifying outcomes. More generally, the results highlight an opportunity to fill a space left by both the decline of the PD and a lack of attraction towards the Five Star Movement.
    Because History is Made by the People
  • The air is clean and re-energising, but the journey does not end here; we are now entering a period that will be more delicate and, in some respects, more difficult.
    Individual membership in the EL
  • I am an individual member of the Party of the European Left, of which I had already been a member as a Member of the European Parliament, and a PRC (Communist Refoundation Party) activist. It was the PRC, one of the founders of the European Left, that pushed this form of membership provided for by the Charter and, at the beginning of the 21st century, supported the creation of an association of individual members.
    Global Call for Democracy
  • On 4 December the constitutional referendum in Italy will be held. We regard this as a decisive moment not only in the history of the Italian republic but also for Europe. The changes submitted to the referendum aim at abolishing many of the democratic achievements laid down in Italy’s post-war constitution in order to transform the state into a ‘market-compatible’ post-democracy.
    L’Altra Europa con Tsipras becomes a political protagonist
  • A national organ of ninety representatives, chosen by local activists, and a concluding document in which ‘a sum of individual’ has become a ‘political subjectivity’ was the outcome of the two-day national assembly of L’Altra Europa con Tsipras, on 18-19 April.
    14N Day in Italy
  • On 14 November European mobilization in Italy has been divided into different events in major cities such as Milan, Turin, Genoa, and Rome. The demonstrations had many participants. The march in Rome brought together unions that joined the general strike (CGIL and Cobas) and students taking the...
    An Initial Evaluation of the Recent Elections in Italy
  • An initial rough evaluation: The right (PdL-Berlusconi and Lega Nord, Northern League) has suffered a defeat; the Third Pole – the moderate centre and major support for the Monti government – has been punished; the Democratic Party has not made progress; Italy of Values (Idv) has had a good result;...

Publication

    1969: The Year the Workers Shook the World
  • 1969 was the year of the workers' revolt, which involved a large part of the industrialised world: from Italy to Poland, from France to the U.S.A — a revolt that questioned the unacceptable conditions in which the working classes lived.

Calendar

    'Mussolini's Grandchildren: Fascism in Contemporary Italy'
  • David Broder, editor of the transform! europe yearbook, Europe editor at JACOBIN, will present his new book "Mussolini's Grandchildren" on 17 May, 19:00 CET at the transform! europe coordination office in Vienna. You are cordially invited to attend!
    20 Years After the European Social Forum - Where is Europe Going?
  • Twenty years after the first European Social Forum, in November 2022 Florence wants to be a further opportunity, along with others taking place in Europe, to foster the convergence of European social actors, organisations and social movements, after a long period of geographical and thematic fragmentation and at a tragic time.
    Italian Election, What Next?
  • The Media Alliance and transform! italia are hosting a public meeting to discuss the outcome of the Italian elections and its consequences.
    ¡No Pasarán! Contested Memories
  • A symposium politics of remembrance, revisionism, and anti-fascist resistance in the Alps-Adriatic Region, organised by the Interregional Forum of the Party of the European Left in the Alps-Adriatic Region, with the participation of transform! europe.
    Coalition of Labour: Worker's Voices in Europe
  • The Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Bavaria talks with the authors of the transform! europe ePublication Coalition of Labour: Worker's Voices in Europe, which provides an analysis of the current working and living conditions, the perceived causes of their situation, and the impact of the pandemic of French, German, and Italian workers.
    Move Up! No profit on People and Planet
  • In this conference, the Citizens' Memorandum was discussed by political figures from all across Europe, North and South America, Asia and Africa. The Citizens' Memorandum, formulated by the "Move Up 2021 Initiative", analyses the key obstacles to needed social changes and presents the most relevant solutions that need to be implemented.

Webinars

    Genoa 2021 – The Struggle for Another World Continues
  • On the occasion of the anniversary of the 2001 Genoa protests against the G8 Summit, this series of events focuses on the political significance of the European Social Forums and the paths and prospects for alternative global movements. Watch the full recordings.