Giorgia Meloni would make Machiavelli proud

Italy’s prime minister is far more popular than Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz
意大利总理比埃马纽埃尔·马克龙和奥拉夫·肖尔茨更受欢迎

2024年10月24日 05:34 上午 |罗马

THE POLITICS of Italy have long been trapped in a cycle of rancid interaction between judges and prosecutors on the one hand and conservative politicians on the other. It dates from at least 1994, when the then prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, was served with a subpoena while hosting a conference in Naples on organised crime. Berlusconi and his supporters claimed he was a victim of politically motivated jurists—and repeated that claim ad nauseam over the years that followed.

意大利政治长期以来陷入法官和检察官与保守派政客之间腐败互动的循环之中。它至少可以追溯到 1994 年，当时的总理西尔维奥·贝卢斯科尼 (Silvio Berlusconi) 在那不勒斯主持关于有组织犯罪的会议时收到了一张传票。贝卢斯科尼和他的支持者声称他是出于政治动机的法学家的受害者，并在接下来的几年里重复了这一说法，令人作呕。

西尔维奥.贝卢斯科尼 图源:wikipedia.org

On October 21st similar accusations were heard as Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing cabinet met to discuss its response to another dramatic judicial intervention. A court in Rome had ruled that 12 migrants, shipped to Albania, should be taken back forthwith to Italy. The ruling came just days after two Italian-built centres for receiving and holding asylum-seekers had been proudly unveiled at the launch of a €670m ($730m) scheme for outsourcing Italy’s immigration problems. The government’s response was to pass a decree that aims to get round the ruling by designating a list of countries as “safe” for the return of people who are not assessed as genuine refugees; but there is no guarantee that the courts will not overturn it.

10 月 21 日，乔治亚·梅洛尼 (Giorgia Meloni) 的右翼内阁开会讨论对另一起戏剧性司法干预的反应时，也听到了类似的指控。罗马一家法院裁定，12 名运往阿尔巴尼亚的移民应立即被带回意大利。就在这项裁决发布的几天前，意大利建造的两个接收和收容寻求庇护者的中心在启动一项用于外包意大利移民问题的 6.7 亿欧元（7.3 亿美元）计划时自豪地揭晓。政府的回应是通过一项法令，旨在通过指定一份国家名单来规避这一裁决，这些国家对于那些未被评估为真正难民的人来说是“安全”的。但不能保证法院不会推翻它。

Ms Meloni now risks a protracted wrangle with the courts like that in Britain over the previous Conservative government’s plans to send migrants to Rwanda. Whether it erodes her support remains to be seen. But reducing the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean is crucial to her mission. And if the centres stand empty for long, they will become the butt of comedians’ jokes and taxpayers’ criticism.

梅洛尼女士现在面临着像英国法院那样因上届保守党政府向卢旺达派遣移民的计划而与法院发生旷日持久的争执的风险。这是否会削弱她的支持还有待观察。但减少跨地中海移民流动对她的使命至关重要。如果这些中心长期空置，它们将成为喜剧演员的笑柄和纳税人的批评对象。

The abrupt suspension of the scheme is the most embarrassing rebuff that Ms Meloni has suffered since taking office two years ago. Until last week, indeed, she and her Brothers of Italy (FdI) party had enjoyed a remarkably smooth ride. Partly that is a matter of luck. The opposition to her government is rancorously split between the centre-left Democratic Party and the maverick Five Star Movement. The Brothers’ coalition partners, the more moderate Forza Italia party led by Antonio Tajani and the more radical League headed by Matteo Salvini, bicker incessantly but show no sign of defecting. Italy’s economy has grown, albeit modestly.

该计划的突然暂停是梅洛尼女士自两年前上任以来遭受的最尴尬的拒绝。事实上，直到上周，她和她的意大利兄弟会 (FdI) 党都过得非常顺利。部分原因是运气问题。反对她的政府的势力分为中左翼民主党和特立独行的五星运动。兄弟会的联盟伙伴，安东尼奥·塔亚尼领导的较为温和的意大利力量党和马泰奥·萨尔维尼领导的较为激进的联盟党，争吵不断，但没有表现出叛逃的迹象。意大利经济有所增长，尽管增幅不大。 

安东尼奥.塔亚尼 图源:wikipedia.org

But her good luck should not detract from a recognition of Ms Meloni’s skills as a political and diplomatic tightrope walker. Take the manoeuvring that followed the European Parliament elections in June. Miffed at being shut out of the talks that crafted a renewed appointment for Ursula von der Leyen as president of the European Commission, Ms Meloni abstained from approving her reappointment in the European Council and the Brothers gave Mrs von der Leyen the thumbs-down in the European Parliament. That aligned them with the EU’s most Eurosceptic and pugnaciously rightist elements.

但梅洛尼女士的好运气不应影响其作为政治和外交走钢丝者的技能的认可。以六月欧洲议会选举后的行动为例。梅洛尼女士因被排除在重新任命乌苏拉·冯德莱恩担任欧盟委员会主席的谈判之外而感到愤怒，她放弃了批准她在欧洲理事会的连任，而兄弟俩则在会议上对冯德莱恩夫人表示了反对。欧洲议会。这使他们与欧盟最疑欧和好斗的右翼分子结盟。 

Italian opposition MPs were appalled. Commentators warned that the prime minister had scuppered any chance of Italy obtaining a heavyweight economic portfolio. In the event, nothing of the sort happened. Ms Meloni’s candidate, Raffaele Fitto, is set fair to become a commission vice-president. And, once his appointment has been approved by the European Parliament, his responsibilities will include the pandemic recovery fund of which Italy is by far the largest beneficiary.

意大利反对派议员对此感到震惊。评论家警告说，总理已经破坏了意大利获得重量级经济组合的任何机会。结果，并没有发生任何类似的事情。梅洛尼女士的候选人拉斐尔·菲托（Raffaele Fitto）有望成为委员会副主席。而且，一旦欧洲议会批准他的任命，他的职责将包括大流行病恢复基金，意大利是迄今为止最大的受益者。 

拉斐尔.菲托 图源:economymagazine.it

At home, Ms Meloni has played a similarly deft, ambiguous game. A potentially controversial constitutional reform has been delayed and will probably not be put to a referendum before the end of the current legislature in 2027. Her government’s management of the economy has been sensible enough, though free of any real effort to tackle its structural weaknesses. Next year’s draft budget, which imposes cuts to rebalance the public accounts, might have been written in Brussels.

在家里，梅洛尼女士也玩着同样巧妙、模棱两可的游戏。一项可能引起争议的宪法改革已被推迟，并且在 2027 年本届立法机关结束之前可能不会进行全民公决。她的政府对经济的管理已经足够明智，但没有采取任何实际行动来解决其结构性弱点。明年的预算草案可能是在布鲁塞尔编写的，该草案将通过削减资金来重新平衡公共账户。

More radical action has been reserved for social issues. The most recent example is a law, approved by parliament on October 16th, criminalising people who travel abroad to arrange a surrogate pregnancy. But, as with previous such initiatives, it targets a limited section of the population, made up of people who would anyway probably never vote for the Brothers.

针对社会问题采取了更激进的行动。最近的例子是议会于 10 月 16 日批准的一项法律，将出国安排代孕的人定为犯罪。但是，与之前的此类举措一样，它针对的是有限的一部分人口，这些人无论如何都可能永远不会投票给兄弟会。

Three questions hang over the remainder of Ms Meloni’s term. One is whether the cumulative effect of such “culture war” incursions could turn Italy into a much less liberal country, aligning it more with central than western Europe. Another is whether, in the absence of reform, a slow-growing economy could cause the government problems in the financial markets. Public debt, which had fallen, is expected to rise to almost 140% of GDP by the end of 2026. But tax revenues this year have been higher than forecast and analysts seem untroubled. On October 18th Fitch, a ratings agency, revised its outlook for Italy’s long-term debt from “stable” to “positive”.

梅洛尼女士的剩余任期仍面临三个问题。一是这种“文化战争”入侵的累积效应是否会使意大利变成一个自由度大大降低的国家，使其更多地与中欧而不是西欧保持一致。另一个问题是，在没有改革的情况下，经济增长缓慢是否会导致金融市场出现政府问题。公共债务已经下降，预计到 2026 年底将升至 GDP 的近 140%。但今年的税收收入高于预期，分析师似乎并不担心。10月18日，评级机构惠誉将意大利长期债务前景从“稳定”调整为“积极”。

A less quantifiable risk concerns Ms Meloni’s micro-managerial style. “She wants to control everything,” says Giovanni Orsina, professor of contemporary history at the LUISS university in Rome. “And she doesn’t trust anyone. She could overload herself—or lose touch with reality.”

梅洛尼女士的微观管理风格是一个不太可量化的风险。“她想控制一切，”罗马路易斯大学当代历史教授乔瓦尼·奥尔西纳说。“而且她不相信任何人。她可能会让自己超负荷——或者脱离现实。”

乔瓦尼.奥尔西纳  图源:it.linkedin.com

But for the moment the reality is that Ms Meloni enjoys an approval rating of more than 40%—twice as high as those of President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany. Not bad for a prime minister approaching the mid-term point at which leaders’ popularity often crashes. ■

但目前的现实是，梅洛尼女士的支持率超过 40%，是法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙和德国总理奥拉夫·肖尔茨的两倍。对于一位即将进入中期选举的首相来说，这还算不错，领导人的支持率往往会在中期崩溃。■