Salvini treads more moderate path to consolidate poll gains

A few days after Matteo Salvini was elected leader of the then Northern League back in 2013, a close adviser registered ownership of the internet domain “bastaeuro.org” — or “no more euro”. The following year Mr Salvini used the website to promote a tour of cities across Italy’s north to attack the single currency.

Today, anyone who clicks on the site will find only a blank screen.

Since taking office in Italy’s coalition government alongside the Five Star Movement in June, the deputy prime minister and leader of the far-right League has staged a sharp reversal on his hostility towards the euro. Where he once pledged to stage an “economic revolution” if he won power, Mr Salvini has more recently made comments about Europe that could easily have come from a conventional centre-right politician.

“We have the euro in our pockets and we will keep it,” he told reporters this month, pledging to forge closer ties with Berlin and adding that he had no intention of going for “Brexit all’Italiana”.

Mr Salvini even denied his party had supported Italy leaving the euro. “In the League’s electoral programme there was no policy of leaving the single currency or the European Union,” he said. The League’s manifesto for this year’s election included the line: “The euro is the main cause of our economic decline . . . we have always looked for partners in Europe to initiate a shared path of agreed exit.”

The League leader’s transformation into an apparent moderate was accentuated this month after he averted a clash with the EU by reversing course on the government’s fiscal plans, despite pledging in October not to change “a comma of the budget”.

Rome’s proposals had sparked a fight between Rome and Brussels and raised the prospect of Italy being fined for breaking EU spendingrules. Now Mr Salvini has given his support to a plan brokered by Giuseppe Conte, prime minister, to bring down Italy’s deficit for next year from 2.4 per cent to 2 per cent of gross domestic product, in a significant symbolic concession to the European Commission.

Observers say Mr Salvini is increasingly trying to alter his message to appeal to mainstream voters. Rather than being an overnight convert to the cause of European stability, they argue, he has taken a pragmatic approach, changing his electoral strategy to cement his party’s new status as the focal point of the Italian right ahead of European elections in May.

The League has lured former voters of Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, which has collapsed in opinion polls as the League has gained ground. The polls have consistently shown Mr Salvini’s party would command above 30 per cent in a general election. A new coalition formed of the League, Forza Italia and other small rightwing parties could conceivably give Mr Salvini the numbers needed to form a workable government.

Giovanni Orsina, director of the LUISS School of Government in Rome, said that when Mr Salvini took charge of his party, he needed to adopt radical positions to gain attention. The U-turns on the euro and on the budget confrontation with Brussels were part of an attempt to convince traditional centre-right voters that the League could be trusted to run Italy and would not take any action that would destabilise a struggling economy, he added.

“The League in 2014 was in a political depression,” said Mr Orsina. “Salvini very clearly identified three big political opportunities: the decline of Silvio Berlusconi on the Italian right, the economic crisis in Europe and the immigration crisis. If you put these three things together, there has been the perfect political opening for him and he has executed his plan masterfully.”

But the League’s political gains could be threatened by a slowing Italian economy that may dent voter confidence. Rome forecasts economic growth of 1.5 per cent in 2019, a figure almost double that of most private sector economists. Official data at the end of November showed the Italian economy narrowly contracted in the third quarter, and a prolonged slump would provide an unwelcome backdrop for Mr Salvini ahead of May.

Lorenzo Codogno, a former chief economist and director-general at the Italian treasury, said that one explanation for the government’s budget shift was a disappointing auction of government debt targeted at retail savers in November. Weak demand may have convinced Rome it would be less able than expected to finance its agenda by selling bonds to ordinary Italians and possibly signalled wider domestic concern about the coalition’s economic policies.

Mr Salvini has repeatedly denied rumours he is eyeing a new general election next year if the European vote shows the League has translated its poll lead into a genuine increase in support across Italy.

But if his party continues to gain momentum he may decide to seize an opportunity unimaginable for even his most devoted followers when he became leader of the League.

“The European elections will be the great bellwether,” said Mr Orsina. “If Salvini gets a good result across Italy, above 30 per cent, I don’t think this government will last much longer. I don’t see how he could resist the temptation to go for an early election.”