Daniele Fulvi

Italy turns right: populists and reactionaries to lead new gov't

Italy’s new government is the most conservative and reactionary since World War II, writes Daniele Fulvi.

After three months of laborious negotiations, Italy finally has a new government. However, there is very little to celebrate.

The populist Five Star Movement (M5S) and the far-right Lega Nord (Northern League) came to an agreement on the government’s agenda. They won the argument against Italian President Sergio Mattarella to give the prime ministership to Giuseppe Conte, a professor and jurist who sympathises with M5S.

Italy: Alarming election leads to dangerous, uncertain future

The results of Italy’s March 4 general elections paint an alarming picture. No one holds the numbers to form a new government alone and the situation is very puzzling and uncertain.

An anti-racist rally

Italy: Urgent action needed against neo-fascist threat

The relationship between Italians and fascism has always been ambivalent in the aftermath of World War II. This is mainly because Italians have never come to terms with its fascist past.

Italy's Power to the People takes radical agenda to the polls

Italian general elections on March 4 will be a testing ground for the new grassroots, left-wing movement Potere al Popolo (Power to the People), born only four months ago.

In a climate of hatred that has poisoned the electoral campaign, Power to the People has stood out for its scale of popular participation, both in the way it established its political agenda and in the campaign itself. In this sense, Power to the People is an unprecedented attempt at creating a real bottom-up democratic movement.

Power to the People: In Italy, a new left-wing movement is born

In Rome on December 17, the first national meeting of Potere al Popolo (Power to the People), a new grassroots left-wing movement aiming at running for the March general elections. But the new group also aims at giving new lifeblood and a new perspective to Italy’s radical left.

Germany: Government negotiations fail

After 60 days of discussions, negotiations for a new governing coalition have failed in Germany, leaving the country without a government.

Last September’s general election – in which the far-right obtained an unprecedented and alarming result – left no party with an absolute majority, forcing incumbent Chancellor Angela Merkel to look for partners to form a new government.

Austria: Big win for far right in elections

The Austrian legislative elections, held on October 15, finished with one clear winner: 31-year-old Sebastian Kurz, who leads the conservative Austrian People’s Party (OVP). His party emerged as the biggest political force in the country, winning 31.7% of the votes and 61 of the 183 seats in Austrian parliament’s lower house, the National Council.

Kurz is now set to become Austria’s new chancellor – the youngest in the country’s history – and thereby completing his meteoric rise to the top.

Germany: Far-right surge sparks protests, poses serious challenge

The picture that emerges from the German elections, held on September 24, is cause for concern on multiple fronts — especially in the surge to the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Alongside Chancellor Angela Merkel winning a fourth term and the clear defeat of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the shadow of a resurgent neo-Nazism casts a serious threat not only for Germany itself, but all of Europe.

WSU staff strike for casuals, pay

Western Sydney University (WSU) staff went on strike on September 20 over stalled negotiations on their pay and working conditions. The half-day strike and rally, called by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), took place at WSU’s Parramatta City Campus.

University management has delayed the bargaining process by unilaterally removing core entitlements from the NTEU’s enterprise agreements, while resisting members’ key demands. Staff at WSU say they are concerned about looming job cuts, the downgrading of classifications, increased workloads and job insecurity.

Italy: Refugees evicted as government attacks on migrants, NGOs steps up

More than 800 Somali and Eritrean refugees were violently evicted on August 24 from a building they were occupying in the centre of Rome. The occupation, which began in 2013, had come to symbolised the inefficient and broken nature of refugee reception policies in Italy.

Fascism threatens Italy once more

A new wave of neo-fascist sentiment has been emerging in recent years in Europe, endangering the basis of Western democracy.

Just think of the Ukraine, where the Communist Party has been banned, or Hungary, where the President Viktor Orban built an anti-migrant wall along the Serbian border (and is about to build a new one). Or Poland, where the parliament recently approved an illiberal law designed to limit the autonomy of the judiciary, subordinating it to the diktats of the justice minister.

Europe closes its doors to migrants

An informal summit of interior ministers from all European Union member states was held on July 7 in Tallinn, Estonia. The first issue on the agenda was migrants.