Pandemic spikes amid new threat of political instability

Italy was the first Eu­ro­pean state to be hit by Covid, and re­mains one of the coun­tries most af­fected by the pan­demic today. After two years of liv­ing with coro­n­avirus, Italy’s pri­or­ity for 2022 is to in­vest the 220 bil­lion euros of EU re­cov­ery funds. As coro­n­avirus in­fec­tions spiked in Italy at the end of last year, the gov­ern­ment laid siege to the un­vac­ci­nated, mak­ing it manda­tory for peo­ple over 50 to be vac­ci­nated. In ad­di­tion, a Covid pass­port is re­quired to use pub­lic trans­port (in Venice, for ex­am­ple, the un­vac­ci­nated can­not travel by va­poretto – an es­sen­tial means of pub­lic trans­port to get around the city – use ho­tels, or at­tend cer­e­monies and fes­ti­vals. At the same time, the Ital­ian gov­ern­ment is mak­ing ef­forts to vac­ci­nate most of the pop­u­la­tion, which, as in many parts of Eu­rope, has re­sulted in anti-vac­cine demon­stra­tions.

At the same time, the coun­try be­gins 2022 fac­ing po­lit­i­cal un­cer­tainty, as vot­ing to ap­point a new pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic will go on into Feb­ru­ary. For the past seven years, the po­si­tion has been held by Si­cil­ian Ser­gio Mattarella, an 80-year-old politi­cian who has al­ready an­nounced his in­ten­tion to step down. A man of con­sen­sus, Mattarella has raised the bar dur­ing his tenure, as can be seen by the five-minute ova­tion he re­ceived at La Scala in Milan in one of his last ap­pear­ances as Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic. Vying to take his place is the favourite for the post, cur­rent prime min­is­ter Mario Draghi. This even­tu­al­ity would cause an earth­quake for Ital­ian pol­i­tics and the unity gov­ern­ment led by Draghi. Yet there are a num­ber of other names in the hat, not least for­mer prime min­is­ter Sil­vio Berlus­coni, who has stayed away from front­line pol­i­tics for the past few years but who does not hide the fact that he is very keen to be­come pres­i­dent even at the age of 85.

The vot­ing to ap­point a new head of state could go on be­yond the Feb­ru­ary 3 dead­line. Some 1,009 vot­ers are in­volved, in­clud­ing MPs, sen­a­tors and re­gional rep­re­sen­ta­tives, with the need for two-thirds of the as­sem­bly to reach a quo­rum in the first three bal­lots. From the fourth round on, an ab­solute ma­jor­ity is enough. With­out any of­fi­cial can­di­dates, who will even­tu­ally be­come Italy’s next pres­i­dent will de­pend on what MPs and sen­a­tors de­cide. Apart from Draghi and Berlus­coni – the names grab­bing the head­lines – also in with a shout are the cur­rent jus­tice min­is­ter Marta Cartabia, for­mer prime min­is­ter Ro­mano Giu­liano Amato, and for­mer for­eign min­is­ter Franco Frat­tini.

An­other chal­lenge fac­ing Italy is the mi­gra­tion cri­sis. In 2021, more than 65,000 mi­grants ar­rived in the coun­try via the cen­tral Mediter­ranean, com­pared to 35,000 the pre­vi­ous year. Italy hopes that 2022 will be the year that the man­age­ment of mi­gra­tion in the Eu­ro­pean Union is gen­uinely re­formed, not only by dis­trib­ut­ing the re­spon­si­bil­ity for re­ceiv­ing mi­grants among all mem­ber states, but also in terms of poli­cies that make it eas­ier for eco­nomic mi­grants with jobs or al­low­ing agree­ments for vol­un­tary repa­tri­a­tion with coun­tries of ori­gin.