Italy
Country in southern Europe, bounded north by Switzerland and Austria,
east by Slovenia, Croatia, and the Adriatic Sea, south by the
Ionian and Mediterranean seas, and west by the Tyrrhenian and
Ligurian seas and France. It includes the Mediterranean islands
of Sardinia and Sicily.
Government
The 1948 constitution provides for a two-chamber parliament consisting
of a senate and a 630-member chamber of deputies. Both are elected
for a five-year term by universal suffrage and have equal powers.
Constitutional reforms adopted 1993 amended the voting system
- one of proportional representation - to allow for 75% of the
chamber of deputies to be elected by simple majority voting. The
revisions also allowed Italian ex-patriates to vote in national
elections and required elected deputies to retire after 15 years.
The senate's 315 elected members are regionally representative,
and there are also seven life senators. The president is constitutional
head of state and is elected for a seven-year term by an electoral
college consisting of both houses of parliament and 58 regional
representatives. The president appoints the prime minister and
cabinet (council of ministers), and they are collectively responsible
to parliament. Although Italy is not a federal state, each of
its 20 regions enjoys a high degree of autonomy, with a regional
council elected for a five-year term by universal suffrage.
History
The consolidation of the politically unified Italy was slow and difficult,
owing to the great social and economic differences between the
wealthier industrializing north and the poor agrarian south. In
1878 King Victor Emmanuel II died and was succeeded by Umberto
I, and in the same year Pope Pius IX was succeeded by Leo XIII.
The later 19th century
Umberto I's reign was characterized by electoral reform (1881) and
foreign colonization. The formation of a colonial empire began
1869 with the purchase of land on the Bay of Assab, on the Red
Sea, from the local sultan. In the next 20 years the Italians
occupied all of Eritrea, which was made a colony in 1889. Somaliland,
along the northeast coast of Africa, was acquired between 1880
and 1890. Italy's claims upon Abyssinia (Ethiopia) led to war,
which ended in an Italian defeat at Adowa (1896) and the restoration
of all land to Abyssinia by the Treaty of Addis Ababa (1896).
In 1882 Italy joined Germany and Austria in the Triple Alliance,
largely owing to its distrust of France. Alliance with Austria
also implied a renunciation of Italy's claims on Austrian possessions
in the north (the Trentino and the South Tirol) and along the
Adriatic coast of the Balkans.
The years before World War I
In 1900 Umberto was assassinated and was succeeded by his only son,
Victor Emmanuel III. At the beginning of the new century Italy
entered upon more friendly relations with France, and in the disputes
over Morocco in 1906-11 supported France against Germany, while
France acquiesced in Italian colonial ambitions in Tripolitania
(an area of modern Libya), then part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
In September 1911 war broke out between Italy and Turkey in
connection with the rights and privileges of Italian subjects
in Tripolitania. In November of the same year the Italian government
formally proclaimed the annexation of Tripolitania and the neighbouring
area of Cyrenaica. In 1912 Italy also acquired the Dodecanese
Islands from Turkey.
Meanwhile, at home, the industrialization of Italy gave rise
to acute problems of social reform, and led to the rise of left-wing
political groups, centred in the north.
Italy in World War I
After the outbreak of war in 1914 between the Allies (including Britain,
France, and Russia) and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary,
and Turkey), Italy was at first neutral. As the price of continued
neutrality, Italy demanded territorial concessions from Austria
in the Trentino, Istria, Dalmatia, and Albania. Austria rejected
all but a small extension of the Italian frontier.
Giorgio Sonnino, the Italian foreign minister, then opened negotiations
with the Allies, and finally, on 26 April 1915, the secret Treaty
of London was signed, by which fulfilment of Italy's territorial
claims was promised together with an immediate loan of £50 million.
On 23 May 1915 Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary.
The Italian army was poorly equipped, and only some 400,000
men were available for the main offensive launched on the River
Isonzo (see Isonzo, Battles of the) and for the operations in
the Trentino (see Trentino Campaign). Not until 1916 did Italy
become actively at war with Germany. As a result of Sonnino's
foreign policy the unity and independence of Albania were proclaimed
under the protection of Italy, while in April 1917 the Treaty
of St Jean-de-Maurienne was concluded with France and Britain,
defining Italy's share in the postwar partition of Asia Minor
(Asiatic Turkey).
In October 1917 the Italians suffered a massive defeat at the
hands of German-Austrian forces at Caporetto (see Caporetto, Battle
of). This defeat stiffened Italian resistance, and in June and
October 1918 the reorganized Italian army defeated the Austrians
at the Second and Third Battles of the Piave, and in October Austria
sued for an armistice. (See World War I for further details of
the fighting on the Italian Front.)
Postwar territorial issues
At the end of World War I the resources of Italy were exhausted. Its
losses in men amounted to half a million, and the country was
bankrupt. The fact, however, that for Italy the war ended with
a military victory encouraged a nationalist movement, which demanded
the port of Fiume (Rijeka, now in Croatia) as well as the territorial
gains promised in the Treaty of London. The Adriatic question
was unsolved, and Italian dissatisfaction with the peace treaty
caused the resignation of the prime minister, Vittorio Orlando
in 1919. He was succeeded by the liberal FrancescoNitti.
Domestic unrest in Italy was heightened by the feeling aroused
over the Allied intervention in Fiume, following the coup d'état
of Gabriele D'Annunzio, who on 12 September 1919 occupied the
city with a band of Italian volunteers. The `Adriatic question´
was settled tentatively by the Treaty of Rapallo (1920), whereby
Italy surrendered the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic to the new
state of Yugoslavia, but secured sovereignty over Zara (Zadar,
now in Croatia), while Fiume was made an independent state. It
remained for Mussolini to reach a definite settlement, known as
the Treaty of Rome, in January 1924, whereby Yugoslavia exercised
control over Port Baroc and the Delta, and Italy over Fiume.
The advent of Mussolini and the Fascists
Benito Mussolini became prime minister in 1922, having been the leader
of the Fasci di Combattimenti, first organized by him in 1919
(see fascism). Italian fascism was an eclectic phenomenon, drawing
both on the violent rhetoric of extreme nationalism and syndicalism.
By 1921 the Fascists increasingly projected themselves as a movement
capable of overcoming the bitter conflicts between capital and
labour, although the development of agrarian fascism in the Po
Valley, which in the same year transformed a minority group into
a mass movement, showed that, despite the movement's ambiguities,
its crucial support came from the right.
In 1921 the Fascists reorganized into a political party and
returned 30 members to parliament, allying themselves with the
Nationalists. In 1922, taking advantage of the weak government
leadership and the continuing social unrest throughout the country
- which rallied much moderate opinion to their support - Mussolini
organized the Fascist March on Rome. The black-shirted Fascist
columns advanced on Rome on 28 October, and two days later Mussolini
arrived from Milan in response to a royal summons. He at once
formed a cabinet in which he combined the premiership with the
ministries of foreign affairs and the interior. At the elections
held in April 1924 the Fascists, after modifying the electoral
laws in their favour, gained an absolute majority.
Following the murder of the Socialist Giacomo Matteoti, Mussolini
came under pressure from his followers to take a hard line against
all opposition. This resulted in the suspension of democratic
rights in January 1925, a ruthless campaign against real and suspected
opponents, and the gradual establishment of Mussolini's dictatorship.
By 1928 Mussolini was absolute dictator, and adopted the title
of Duce (leader). Superficially at least, Italy took on the appearance
of a corporative state.
The 1929 Lateran Treaties, establishing the pope's territorial
sovereignty over the Vatican City State, and subsequent moderation
by Mussolini on religious questions, gave him at least passive
support from many devout Catholics who never became active Fascists.
Italian expansionism in the 1930s
In foreign affairs Italy successfully surmounted many difficulties
with Yugoslavia over Fiume; with Greece over the murder of Gen
Tollini of the Albanian Frontier Commission, followed by the Italian
occupation of Corfu; with France over the treatment of Italian
minorities in France and Tunisia; and with Turkey over Turkish
fears of an Italian annexation of Anatolia. Italy was also a signatory
to the Locarno treaties on European security (see Locarno, Pact
of).
A rapid increase in population and a shortage of war materials,
coupled with the bankruptcy of the regime's domestic policy and
the need to create new support, led Italy along the road of imperialism.
Notwithstanding the existence of various treaties and conventions
guaranteeing the integrity of Ethiopia, Mussolini announced his
intention of annexing the country and by May 1936 Italian forces
were in occupation of the Ethiopian capital. Thus, in addition
to the areas of Libya conquered in 1911, vast new regions were
added in 1936; yet the number of Italians settled in the Italian
possessions in northeast Africa scarcely ever exceeded 30,000.
The League of Nations considered collective action against Italy,
but the idea was eventually abandoned. Mussolini, together with
Hitler, also committed forces to the right-wing cause of Gen Franco
in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). After the Munich Agreement
(1938), Mussolini's prestige rose considerably as a result of
his part in the settlement. This event further strengthened the
ties between Italy and Germany (already strong since the formation
of the Rome-Berlin Axis in October 1936), even though the German
annexation of Austria earlier in 1938 had appeared to frustrate
Mussolini's ambition of achieving a dominant position in southeast
Europe.
Mussolini's aggressive intentions became increasingly obvious:
Italian claims were launched for Djibouti, Tunisia, Corsica, and
Nice. In April 1939 Italian troops invaded Albania. King Zog fled,
the country was occupied, and Victor Emmanuel III became king
of Albania. In May Italy and Nazi Germany signed a treaty of alliance.
Increasing authoritarianism
At home, the Duce strengthened his autocratic position by the abolition
of the Chamber of Deputies. In its place a Chamber of Fasci and
Corporations was set up, having 800 members from the National
Council of the Fascist Party and the National Council of Corporations,
nominated by Mussolini. The government had the right to issue
decrees with the force of law, which were then placed before the
Chamber. The Chamber dealt with constitutional laws, budget estimates,
and also any other matters that Mussolini authorized it to discuss.
The real ruling authority was the Gran Consiglio del Fascismo
(Fascist Grand Council), which was composed of the quadrumviri
of the March on Rome, appointed for an indefinite period, a certain
number of members (ministers and other high dignitaries) appointed
for as long as they held their offices, and an indeterminate number
of members appointed for three years by the head of the government.
Early campaigns in World War II
On the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Italy was at first neutral,
though obviously friendly to Germany. Nevertheless the following
year, with the decline of Allied fortunes in western Europe, Mussolini
became convinced of an eventual Germany victory and on 10 June
Italy declared war on France and Great Britain, and shortly afterwards
launched an attack on Egypt from Libya. But, contrary to Mussolini's
probable belief, the collapse of France did not bring the war
to an end and Italy gained few territorial benefits. (For further
details of the course of the war see also World War II.)
Economic conditions in Italy became increasingly bad. In October
1940 Italy launched an attack on Greece, but the stout resistance
maintained by the Greeks caused the campaign to linger on through
the winter with catastrophic results for the Italians. Moreover
the Italian navy was severely crippled by the British air force
attack on the naval base of Taranto (November 1940).
Military disasters continued: an Italian army was routed in
Albania by the Greeks in March 1941, the province of Cyrenaica
was lost to the Allies (see North Africa Campaign), and the Ethiopians
launched a successful revolt, which, aided by British arms, resulted
in the loss of Eritrea (March) and the fall of Addis Ababa (April).
Germany, however, succeeded in retrieving Italian fortunes in
both North Africa and the Balkans. The reflected prestige helped
to maintain the Fascist regime in Italy, which fell more and more
under the control of Germany.
Italy was associated with Germany in the defeat of Yugoslavia
and gained some land on the Dalmatian coast. Italy also provided
an occupying force for Greece, which had been defeated by the
Germans. By June 1941 Italy was at war with the USSR (although
Hitler had given no notice to Mussolini of his intention to invade
the USSR), and by the end of the year with the USA. Italy's economic
situation deteriorated still further and its industry was entirely
tied to Germany's war machine. With German help, efforts were
made to strengthen the hold of the Fascist Party. At the instigation
of Germany, the Fascists also started to deport large number of
Italian Jews to the Nazi death camps. At the end of 1941 Italy
occupied Nice and Corsica at the same time as the Germans moved
into southern France.
The fall of Mussolini
The year 1943 saw the fall of Mussolini and the surrender of Italy
to the Allies. After the Allied invasion of Sicily, Mussolini
made a last bid to prepare the mainland of Italy against invasion
and to ensure the loyalty of the Fascist Party by excluding several
leading members from the government. Dissension within the Fascist
Party, however, broke into open revolt when Mussolini, after two
meetings with Hitler in July, was unable to obtain a promise of
adequate German support against the coming invasion.
By order of the king, Mussolini was arrested and Pietro Badoglio,
another Fascist, was called upon to form a government. A secret
armistice with the Allies was agreed while the Germans, in anticipation
of some such move, tightened their grip in northern Italy and
also occupied the Rome airfields. On 8 September, following the
Allied landing at Salerno, the armistice was declared. Badoglio
set up his government in British-occupied territory and on 11
October Italy declared war on Germany.
In the meantime, Mussolini, after a dramatic airborne rescue
carried out by German paratroopers, set up a republican Fascist
regime in the north, named the Republic of Salo. He revenged himself
on those of his former supporters who had betrayed him but were
now in his power. Among them were Count Galeazzo Ciano and Emilio
De Bono who were tried and shot (January 1944).
Liberation
In June 1944 the Allied armies entered Rome and Victor Emmanuel retired
in favour of his son, Prince Umberto. He did not, however, abdicate.
Badoglio resigned and Ivanoe Bonomi, a veteran socialist statesman
from the days before fascism, formed a new government. With an
Italian government in Rome most of the occupied areas of southern
Italy were handed over to Italian control, and the government
was recognized diplomatically by the United Nations.
On 28 April 1945 Mussolini, his mistress, and 12 members of
his cabinet were shot by members of the largely left-wing partisan
resistance movement, which had been fighting the Fascists and
Germans in occupied Italy since 1943, and had also organized general
strikes. On 2 May 1945 the German army in Italy surrendered, and
the liberation of Italy was completed.
The establishment of the republic Bonomi, who considered his
interim task now at an end, resigned and a coalition government
under Ferrucio Parri succeeded him. Parri resigned in November
1945, after a consultative assembly had been established and a
new government comprising six parties was formed by the Christian
Democrat Alcide De Gasperi. By this time the Allied military government
had handed over to the Italian government the control of all territory
except Venezia Giulia and the Udine province, while the economic
situation was eased by supplies that reached Italy from foreign
sources through the agency of the UN.
On 9 May 1946 Victor Emmanuel formally abdicated and his son
was proclaimed king as Umberto II. However, a referendum on the
future of the monarchy held in June resulted in a majority in
favour of a republic. Umberto abdicated on 13 June, and subsequently
went into exile in Portugal.
Elections were held for the Constituent Assembly under a new
system of proportional representation, which resulted in a gain
of 207 seats for the Christian Democratic Party, 115 for the Socialists,
and 104 for the Communists out of a total of 556. The Constituent
Assembly met on 25 June and proclaimed a republic, electing de
Nicola as provisional president. De Gasperi continued as premier
of a reconstructed coalition government, the first for 25 years
to consist of freely elected deputies.
The peace treaty
The first event that confronted the new government was the peace treaty
with the Allies, signed on 10 February 1947. The terms of the
treaty, whereby Istria, Fiume, and land east of the River Isonzo
were ceded to Yugoslavia (with the exception of the newly created
Free Territory of Trieste) were considered a sad blow to Italy,
and neither did they satisfy Yugoslav ambitions. The treaty also
stipulated the cession of the Tenda-Briga area in the Maritime
Alps to France and the Dodecanese Islands to Greece, while Italy
also lost its colonies in Africa and agreed to respect the independence
of Ethiopia.
Italy also agreed to pay substantial reparations over seven
years, and provisions were made for the demilitarization of frontiers
and of islands in the Mediterranean and for the limitation of
armed forces.
De Gasperi's governments 1947- 53
De Gasperi, at the head of a new coalition government (22 January 1947),
weathered the storm created by the peace treaty. Further unrest
was being caused by shortages of raw materials and other economic
difficulties. In May the Communists, who had supported the government
since 1944, were expelled from the coalition, and De Gasperi formed
a further government dependent mainly on the Christian Democrats.
The new constitution became law on 1 January 1948. In May 1948
Luigi Einaudi was elected president of Italy for a seven-year
term.
The general election of 1948 established the Christian Democrats
as the major party of the right. The successive De Gasperi administrations
(he headed eight between 1945 and 1953) always had to rely on
support from other parties, latterly more and more right-wing
Socialists and the Liberals; for, though the Christian Democrats
were the largest single party in parliament, they never had an
overwhelming majority over all other parties combined.
As time went by the left-wing parties in the coalitions became
increasingly dissatisfied with the government's internal policy,
which they regarded as insufficiently progressive. Various attempts
at social reform were, however, carried out by De Gasperi and
his successors, notably in the sphere of land reform, which especially
affected southern Italy, but with little real success.
De Gasperi's foreign policy brought Italy into NATO (1949) and
in the same year it became a founder member of the Council of
Europe. His moderate influence soon reestablished Italy's status
in West European politics, but his alliances with the West were
bitterly opposed by the Communists.
The Christian Democrats lost ground in the general election
in 1953 after an attempt to alter the electoral laws in their
favour. In July De Gasperi formed his eighth and last ministry.
Only his own party members joined it and it lasted only a few
days. After 1953 various attempts were made to build a new coalition
formula around the weakened Christian Democrat Party.
The later 1950s
The 12 years, 1950-62, saw the Italian `economic miracle´, during which
its gross national product doubled, and it was able to sustain
one of the highest growth rates in the world (6%) for an even
longer period.
In October 1954 Italy and Yugoslavia finally reached agreement
over the Trieste problem, thus settling a nine-year dispute. Under
it, Italy obtained an area including Trieste city and Yugoslavia
the area around it, where the population was mainly non-Italian.
Trieste was to remain a free port. It was on the whole a solution
more favourable than Italy could have envisaged at the end of
the war. In 1955 Giovanni Gronchi succeeded Luigi Einaudi as president
of the Republic.
The late 1950s were a period of considerable uncertainty. The
Soviet invasion of Hungary (1956) led to a regrouping of the left-wing
parties, and a less intransigent position was adopted by Pietro
Nenni's Socialist Party. At the level of local government a certain
amount of cooperation between the Socialist and Centre parties
became possible. These developments had as their background the
rapid expansion of the country's economy, which was symbolized
in 1957 by the signing of the Treaty of Rome, which gave Italy
an important position in the new European Economic Community (EEC)
and illustrated the degree of recovery achieved since the war.
The shift to the left in the 1960s
The 1960s ushered in a decade of political and economic difficulties.
The organization of the EEC itself, together with the fiercer
climate of international competition, began to reveal weaknesses
in Italy's export- led economic boom. Higher rates of employment
meant that the low-wage policies that had nurtured the boom had
to be abandoned in the face of mounting discontent, and the parties
of the left increasingly gained support.
During the brief premiership of Fernando Tambroni (1960) an
attempt was made to find a new right -wing coalition, drawing
on monarchists and neo-fascists. The venture seemed to point the
way to an experiment in presidential government, and the resulting
outcry led not only to Tambroni's fall but also to a series of
attempts to find an `opening to the left´, a coalition based on
the Christian Democrats that would include the left rather than
the traditional centre and right.
The shift to the left was also facilitated by the new liberalism
of the Vatican after the election of Pope John XXIII in 1958,
which made cooperation between clerical politicians and the Socialists
a practical possibility. The spectacular economic growth of the
1950s had also converted many previous disciples of laissez-faire
among the Christian Democrats, who were now ready to accept some
degree of state planning and intervention.
The Christian Democrat Amintore Fanfani guided the first move
to the left in his coalition government of 1960-62, but in the
attempt to find a programme acceptable to the Socialists he lost
the support of sections of his own party. After heavy losses in
the 1963 elections Fanfani stood down, but after a caretaker government
the experiment was successfully resumed by Aldo Moro (Christian
Democrat prime minister from December 1963 to June 1968), who
was able to obtain the support of Nenni's Socialist Party. The
alliance was strained by the government's deflationary policies,
and also by the revelation of a supposed conspiracy in which the
Secret Service (SIFAR) was heavily implicated. This led to a further
split within the Socialist Party and the formation of a Party
of Proletarian Unity by Nenni's discontented followers.
In 1964 the divided Christian Democrats had been unable to decide
on a candidate, and the Social Democrat, Giuseppe Saragat, was
elected president. Despite its early promise the Moldo coalition
achieved little in the way of practical reforms, and the Socialists
paid the price in the elections of 1968. A new centre-left coalition,
including Republicans and various socialist groups, was formed
by Mariano Rumor in December 1968, but it was unable to survive
the violent outbursts of discontent amongst both students and
industrial workers in the following year.
The turbulent 1970s
Against a continuing background of unrest and violence, notably in
the city of Reggio di Calabria, a new reforming ministry was formed
by Emilio Colombo (July 1970-June 1971). The election of a new
president, the Christian Democrat Giovanni Leone, in December
1971 was followed by a dissolution of parliament a year before
the expiry of its term (for the first time in postwar Italy),
and under the more conservative leadership of Giulio Andreotti
the Christian Democrats held up well in the ensuing elections.
In addition to industrial disputes and economic problems, Italian
politics were dominated by two other issues in the earlier 1970s.
In July 1970 the law creating new regional assemblies came into
force, and the first elections to the regional councils were held.
In general, support was shown for parties of the government coalition,
but in the local elections of 1975 Italian politics received one
of their sharpest jolts since the war when the Communists made
landslide gains.
The second major issue was that of the referendum on the Divorce
Bill introduced in 1970. The referendum was delayed until 1974,
but the favourable vote was seen as a further blow to the traditional
clerical parties and an indication of the Roman Catholic Church's
declining influence in Italian politics.
In January 1976 Moro's coalition government resigned after the
withdrawal of support by the Socialists. He formed a minority
Christian Democrat administration in February, but lacking adequate
support was forced to resign in April. In the June elections,
the Communists greatly increased their share of the vote (receiving
over 34% as against 27% in 1972). The Christian Democrats maintained
their 38% share by taking votes from the extreme right and the
smaller centre parties.
In the wake of their electoral success the Communists pressed
for what they called the `historic compromise´, a broad-based
government with representatives from the Christian Democratic,
Socialist, and Communist parties, which would, in effect, be an
alliance between Communism and Roman Catholicism. The Christian
Democrats rejected this. Apart from a brief period in 1977-78,
the other parties excluded the Communists from power-sharing,
forcing them to join the opposition.
At the end of July 1976 Giulio Andreotti formed a government
of Christian Democrats, assured of the abstention of the Communist
deputies, and the new government proceeded to introduce severe
measures to cope with the continuing economic crisis. Andreotti
continued as prime minister until 1979.
Political violence continued through this period. On the extreme
left, the Red Brigade were responsible for a number of terrorist
acts, including the kidnapping and shooting of the former prime
minister, Alberto Moro (1978). The Red Brigade were also initially
thought to be responsible for the bombing of Bologna railway station
in 1980, in which 82 people died, but this was later found to
be the work of far-right elements.
Italy in the 1980s
In 1980 the Socialists returned to share power with the Christian Democrats
and Republicans and participated in a number of subsequent coalitions.
In 1983, the leader of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), Bettino
Craxi, became the republic's first Socialist prime minister, leading
a coalition of Christian Democrats, Socialists, Republicans, Social
Democrats, and Liberals. In the same year Italy played an important
part in the multinational peacekeeping force in Beirut.
Under Craxi's government, which lasted until 1987, the state
of the economy improved, although the north-south divide in productivity
and prosperity persisted, despite attempts to increase investment
in the south. Various short-lived coalition governments followed;
in 1989, the veteran Giulio Andreotti put together a new coalition
of Christian Democrats, Socialists, and minor parties.
The early 1990s
In 1990 the Communist Party abandoned Marxism-Leninism and adopted
the name Democratic Party of the Left (PDS). Its leader, Achille
Occhetto, was elected secretary general of the renamed party.
A referendum held in 1991 overwhelmingly approved reform of the
voting procedure in an attempt to eliminate electoral corruption
and to reduce the political influence of the Mafia. The 1992 general
election resulted in the ruling coalition losing its majority
and the need for the Christian Democrats to forge a new alliance.
President Cossiga carried out his threat to resign if a new
coalition was not formed within a reasonable time. The election
of Oscar Luigi Scalfaro as president in May 1992 was followed
in June by the swearing in of Giuliano Amato, leader of the PDS,
as premier. In September 1992, after unprecedented currency speculation,
the government devalued the lira and suspended its membership
of the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the European Monetary System.
Corruption scandals
In February 1993 judges investigating Italy's corruption network accused
PSI leader, Bettino Craxi, of involvement. He resigned the leadership
and was succeeded by Giorgio Benvenutu. In March 1993 corruption
investigations (Mani Puliti ), instigated in 1992 by the crusading
Milan magistrate Antonio di Pietro, revealed the extensive involvement
of many of Italy's notable politicians, including seven-times
prime minister, Giulio Andreotti, whose name was linked with Mafia
leaders. In May 1993 parliament voted to retain former Socialist
leader Bettino Craxi's immunity from prosecution on several charges
of corruption, despite widespread criticism.
Constitutional reform
An April 1993 referendum showed 82.7% of the Italian people to be in
favour of a new majority electoral system and a `cleaner´ democracy.
Prime Minister Giuliano Amato announced his resignation, marking
the start of a transition towards a Second Republic. Carlo Azeglio
Ciampi, the Christian Democrat governor of the Bank of Italy,
was asked to form a new government. In May, Giorgio Benvenutu
was replaced as PSI leader by Ottaviano del Truro. Constitutional
reform proposals were approved by parliament in August 1993.
Berlusconi's right-wing alliance, 1994 In January 1994 Ciampi
resigned to make way for a general election. A number of new political
parties subsequently formed, including the right-of-centre Forza
Italia, transformed from a pressure group into a full-fledged
political party under media magnate Silvio Berlusconi.
Despite fundamental differences in policy between the federalist
Northern League (LN, or Lombardy League) and the neofascist National
Alliance, the two parties joined forces with Berlusconi's Forza
Italia to fight the March 1994 elections, winning a resounding
victory. Berlusconi succeeded in forming a right-wing coalition
government but, within months of assuming office, faced a crisis
of confidence arising from alleged conflicts of interest between
his business concerns and his national responsibilities. In December
1994, after his coalition lost its parliamentary majority, he
resigned.
Dini's premiership, 1995-96
Lamberto Dini, a former banker and independent member of Berlusconi's
administration, was chosen to form a new government in January
1995. He led a cabinet of nonelected technocrats and sought to
reduce the budget deficit by reform of the state pension system,
but was fiercely opposed by Berlusconi's Forza Italia and in October
1995 narrowly survived a no-confidence vote by agreeing to step
down at the end of the year. Dini formally resigned in January
1996 but, after the failure of Antonio Maccanico to form a broad-
based coalition on the instruction of President Scalfaro, continued
as caretaker premier until the election in spring.
Developments in 1996-97
In the general election of April 1996, the centre-left `Olive Tree
alliance´ emerged victorious with about 45% of the vote. Its leader,
Romano Prodi, was appointed prime minister.
In the same month as the general election, former prime ministers
Berlusconi, Craxi, and Andreotti, and former foreign minister
Gianni de Michelis, former chief prosecutor Antonio di Pietro,
together with fashion designers Giorgio Armani, Krizia, and Santo
Versace were arraigned on corruption charges. Di Pietro was subsequently
cleared of all allegations.
In September 1996 Northern League leader Umberto Bossi, blaming
the southern states for Italy's economic decline, proposed an
independent Republic of Padania to embrace the whole of northern
Italy, including Milan, Florence, and Venice. In November 1996
the lira reentered the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the European
Monetary System. Di Pietro resigned from the Prodi government
in November amid renewed allegations of corruption.
In January 1997 Berlusconi's brother, Paolo, was cleared of
plotting against Antonio di Pietro. Prime Minister Prodi survived
a no-confidence vote in parliament in April 1997.
The South Tirol problem
A continuing problem has been the existence of non-Italian-speaking
minorities, who number about 250,000. Some of these are the German-speaking
people who live in the South Tirol, the area round Bolzano (Bozen)
on the borders of Switzerland and Austria. After World War II
many of these German- speakers demanded a severance of the ties
with Italy; some hoped for an independent Tirolean state, others
called for reunion with Austria. In an agreement to settle the
issue in 1946, Austria acknowledged the existing Brenner frontier
with Italy, and Italy in turn promised local self- government
or autonomy within the framework of the Italian state for the
province of Bolzano and the few mixed-language communes in the
province of Trento to the south. After several years of tension
in the province, including terrorist incidents in the early 1960s,
the Italian and Austrian governments found a mutually acceptable
policy that restored peace to the area.
The north-south divide
The plight of southern Italy (the Mezzogiorno) has presented one of
the most permanent and intractable problems since the formation
of the Italian state in 1870. Existing poverty and backwardness
in the south was further aggravated by the industrialization of
the north in the late 19th century, and the reforms introduced
by Giovanni Giolitti (prime minister several times in the late
19th and early 20th centuries) had little success. The massive
wave of overseas emigration in the decade before 1914 provides
an index of the deteriorating conditions in the south.
Despite early promises, however, the area was again neglected
by the Fascist regime. After liberation in 1944 the south once
again became the scene of bitter peasant risings and attempts
to occupy uncultivated estates. De Gasperi's government in 1950
introduced agrarian reforms and established a special bank, the
Cassa del Mezzogiorno, to encourage investment in the south. The
renewed massive emigration of the 1950s and 1960s indicated that
such measures were inadequate.
Other government plans to create incentives for investment in
the south, the Vanoni Plan (1954) and the Pieraccini Plan (1965)
were never implemented, and the Alfa Romeo factory built near
Naples rapidly proved to be a costly blunder. The funds of the
Cassa have often been directed to political, rather than economic,
ends, and although some improvements have occurred, the gap between
the north and south has tended to increase since the end of the
war.
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