ABSTRACT
In order precisely to understand Italian intergovernmental relations, it is always necessary to keep in mind one premise: Italian governments have constantly being weak both in terms of their likely and projected stability and in terms of their decisionmaking powers. Therefore, those institutions and groups that were interested in opposing a decision could just try to buy time and wait for the inevitable change in the government and/or the ministers and/or the policies. There has so far been no improvement either in the stability or in the decision-making powers of Italian governments. Indeed, two major changes indicate that many decisions will be taken elsewhere. Paradoxically, if this phenomenon is confirmed it may allow those Italian governments that are successful in gaining enough political stability to concentrate on few, major decisions. The first, very important change has been the growing of the ties between Italy and the European Union. This is not at all a development that concerns simply and only Italy. However, some of its consequences have been more important for Italy than for other European member states of the European Union. The case of the Euro is especially revealing. Italian public opinion and fundamentally all Italian governments, with the possible exception of the one led by Silvio Berlusconi from April to December 1994, have been, at least verbally, unabashedly pro-Europe in all its various expressions. This pro-European attitude has constituted a sort of threshold for the governmental acceptance of some parties. Gradually, though increasingly, the Communists shifted their position and their policies towards, at least in the late 1970s, full acceptance and full participation in the European institutions and unification process. Hence, to some extent, one can say that the simple existence of a European democratic framework produced positive results for the Italian political system.
