The perennial resignations of Italian Premier Lamberto Dini
Two weeks ago my editor asked me if I wouldn’t like to do a piece on Dini’s resignation from his position as Prime Minister. Evidently, mention had been made of the event in one of those rare occasions when the American press occupies itself with news from the Italian political scene. It was natural that he should assume that if the American press is talking about the event, it must be big news. For Italians, however, it was no news at all; there has been talk of nothing else since he took his post one year ago. It would have been news had he failed to resign. In November during one of the many governmental crisis, Dini had made a personal commitment to the members of Parliament to leave his post by the end of the year, if they would allow him to stay to get the budget approved.
Italian journalist Antonio Socci, who writes for the Milan based newspaper, Il Giornale, the only daily newspaper in Italy to tell it like it really is concerning internal politics, has even coined a word to express the perennial aspect of Dini’s resignations. The word is “Dinissioni” which is a play on words with the fusion of the prime minister’s name and the Italian word for resignations, which is “dimissioni”. In a front page editorial entitled “Dinissioni, the eternal refrain of Lamberto,” Socci cites one metaphor after another to illustrate the perpetual aspect of Dini’s presence. The title of the article itself is a vivid example of what Italians have been listening to all year: “Just let me do this, And then I’ll leave, Just let me do that, And then I’ll leave.
Socci compares Dini’s promise to leave to the fatalistic predictions made by religious sects every time they pronounce the date for the end of the world: “It seems that it is just around the corner, but then it is promptly postponed to a later undetermined date.” He goes on to say how appropriate this is anyway in a country like Italy where postponements are a national tradition and that a true expert like Dini has the talent to use the fog in Val Padana as an excuse for his permanence at Palazzo Chigi. (The Val Padana is the Valley of the Po river in northern Italy renowned for its incessant fog.) He continues with an allusion to one of Colombian author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novels, in referring to Dini’s departure as “a chronicle of a death repeatedly foretold, but never accomplished.”
Socci goes on to give his readers a summary of the hows and whys of each time Dini was supposed to go, but didn’t. I’ll spare the reader these boring details. Let it suffice to say that the latest motivation for Dini to remain in his seat is Italy’s term as President of the European Union, which began this month and will end in June. Scalfaro and Dini, as well as the other politicians who support them, are worried about the bad impression Italy will make on the international community if it is forced to face general elections during the so called Italian Semester. The fact that there are two other recent precedents does nothing to convince them either. Last year France held general elections during its term of the European Presidency and so did Germany in the preceding semester. Elections are a natural part of the democratic process and if they happen to fall during an important moment of international engagement, a truly representative government sees no difficulty in getting on with democratic business. With Italy, however, “making a good impression” seems to have the upper hand on respect for democracy. This is no surprise in a country which has always given more importance to the superficial “bella figura” than the hidden lacking substance.
I ask myself, though, if Lamberto Dini and his foreign minister, Susanna Agnelli are the best figures to present Italy as “bella” on the international scene. Their innumerable diplomatic blunders during the past year are worthy of questioning. In November, when the United Nations voted against the proliferation of nuclear testing, most members of the core of the European Union had decided to abstain from the vote so as to avoid offending their partner in the union, France. This was the planned position of Italy, as well. At the last minute, Italy voted for the motion and therefore, against France. Why? Filibustering. In order to gain support from Parliamentary members who threatened to give him a vote of no confidence, Dini was forced to have a change of mind, if not of heart.
Then, when members of the European Union met in Madrid in December in occasion of the last encounter of the Spanish Semester, French President Jacques Chirac was seated at the same table with Italian Prime Minister Lamberto Dini and the heads of state of other countries who were applying for European Union membership and had diplomatically abstained from the vote at the UN. Chirac thanked those who had abstained and said that it was a gesture that he would not forget. Dini must have had a guilty conscience because he totally misunderstood Chricac’s words as a reproach of those who had not abstained, and left the table offended.
Later at the same meeting when Chirac suggested that he would not be
present at the European Union meeting to be held in Turin in March due
to previous engagements and suggested that it was a meeting that could
easily be presided over by the countries’ respective foreign ministers
rather than the heads of state, Susanna Agnelli couldn’t resist this spiteful
reply: “If President Chirac will be too busy in Mururoa, too bad.”
Agnelli is creating herself quite a reputation for pouting when she
doesn’t get what she wants. When NATO began its air military operations
in Bosnia last summer, she threatened to refuse use of the Italian air
bases, if Italy were not allowed to become a member of the contact group.
Are these the kinds of attitudes and behavior that Italians want to be
represented by in the international arena?
When Dini finally and formally turned in his long awaited resignation
at the end of December, his buddy, President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro did not
accept it and Dini returned to Palazzo Chigi smiling and wagging his tail.
Scalfaro asked him to continue in his office and put the matter before
Parliament. This was no surprise to anyone either. And that
is where we are now, back to square one. Is it any wonder that in
reference to the fact that Dini had promised to leave by the end of the
year, Antonio Socci asks, “Which year?”
January 1996
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