Explaining Italian Preferences at the Constitutional Convention
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Explaining Italian Preferences at the Constitutional Convention David Hine Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, George Street, Oxford OX1 2RL, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
Italy’s position in the Convention represented a partial shift away from traditional national positions. This might have been expected given the apparent euroscepticism of some parties in the government elected in 2001, and from the growing challenges Italy faced from monetary union and the internal market process. But, while the traditional rhetorical commitment to integration was toned down, on the key institutional choices facing the Convention Italy’s representatives still favoured solutions generally supportive of the mainstream features of the Community method, and especially of further development of supra-national foreign and defence policy-making. The explanation lies in the interaction of the Convention process, evolving party interests and opportunities inside the Italian coalition, and the risks of Italian isolation in EU decision-making arenas arising from its close association with US policy in Iraq. A liberal intergovernmentalist explanation thus captures rather little of what happened. The explanation of Italian choices lies more plausibly in an institutionalist direction: the special nature of the Convention process, national decision-making processes and coalition relations, and the institutional logic, for Italy, of the EU itself. Comparative European Politics (2004) 2, 302–319. doi:10.1057/palgrave.cep.6110037 Keywords: Italy; preference-formation; EU; Convention; constitutional treaty; liberal-intergovernmentalism; EU treaty reform
Preferences and Explanations Italy’s long-standing European values Italy’s European policy — strongly supported by public opinion — was traditionally based on firm commitment to EU institutions and the community method, and a willingness to cede sovereignty through institutional reform. There was a high level of inter-party agreement on broad objectives, and a national reluctance to see the EU as working against Italy’s fundamental interests. Eurosceptics hardly existed. Even when it became possible in the mid1990 s that first-wave membership of the euro would have a distorting impact on the economy, few critics asked whether there was an alternative. European rules and policy restrictions were generally seen as benign, and the task of an elected government not only to defend Italian interests against Europe, or to
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reshape Europe in a mould more favourable to Italy, but also to ensure that government does what is required by Europe (Cotta, 1992; Hine, 1993; Romano, 1993; European Commission, 2002). Italy had few difficulties with further institutional development. It was a strong supporter of the SEA and the TEU. Its government would probably have gone further in both IGCs. The same was true of Amsterdam and Nice. Even in advance of the European Convention in 2001, the Italian Senate, in its resolution on the position t
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