The Italian political situation is very specific. Now is the time to bring together all the political forces that do not feel represented by the extreme right or even the extreme left – a nationalist right and a left that has lost its reformist connotations.
Political forces such as Italia Viva and Azione are moving to build a larger political party that occupies the centre of Parliament. Another political entity is also moving in this context which intends to bring together all the liberals in a large umbrella organisation that includes the federation promoted by Azione and Italia Viva and which sees its political horizon in Renew Europe (formerly ALDE).
The construction of this new political entity has started. There is also a date set in red: January 14, 2023. That day the founding assembly of the Costituente Liberale (Liberal Constituent Assembly) will be held in Milan. The initiative is ambitious. Among those present will be Sandro Gozi (the MEP and leader of the PDE) , Giuseppe Benedetto (the President of the Einaudi Foundation) , Oscar Giannino (a member of the Adam Smith Institute) and Alessandro De Nicola (Senior Partner of the Italian branches of the Orrick Law Firm).
Alessandro De Nicola underlines the importance of the meeting as a founding moment of a federation of various liberals who live in the Italian context, a federation that includes the founding parties Azione and Italia Viva and also +Europe. Above all it highlights what has already been done by bringing together Altenativa Liberale, Alleanza Liberale for Italy, Liberal Forum and other groups who are today finally united in a single project that supports and strengthens the liberal area of the federation launched by Carlo Calenda and Matteo Renzi.
The Liberal Constituent Assembly is strong in the south thanks to Stefano Maria Cuomo’s movement “Liberali Moderati for Italy”, a movement that is among the first founding members of the project.
The great history of liberal and secular pro-European southernism is being resumed. That of Croce, Salvemini, Cortese, Cifarelli, Compagna etc etc. It is an extraordinary opportunity for the whole country.
Liberal culture is put back at the centre, a great history is relaunched in a unified way, all inclined to the future. The goal is a single, liberal, reformist and pro-European political entity, strongly Atlanticist and attentive to the needs of businesses and the productive world, with a great and ambitious goal: to structurally reform the country.
Let’s mark this date. January 14, 2023.
Good work and good luck to the newborn Costituente Liberale.
* Massimo Ricciuti is an Italian journalist and supporter of our sister parties in the Renew Europe Group.
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4 Comments
I hesitate to welcome economic liberals who see the Adam Smith Institute (or the Institute of Economic Affairs) as their favourite think tanks. I recall addressing a meeting of economic Italian liberals and a number of social liberals 25 years ago, as they were wavering on how to respond to the regrouping of political parties, left and right; the Contessa Machiavelli was our hostess. I hope that the emergent grouping will support a JSMill approach to Liberalism, not a Friedrich von Hayek one?
Would you place Croce in a Millian tradition Massimo.
@William Wallace please can we have a book of essays if that is not an impertinent request.
Would like to get more informative pieces from Massimo, on the delving into the Italian arena.
Italy has a great Liberal tradition, centre left to centre right.
I think while our regular contributors like William are correct to worry about a spur to growing the ideas of Adam Smith adherants, Ruth is correct to think of Benedetto Croce, a true Liberal in the Mill area of thought.
Look at the Liberal socialist ideas of the Rosselli brothers etc under Mussolini, and the cultural greatness of in fact, one of my hero stalwarts, the singer actor, mp, Domenico Modugno, lots of others towards the Liberal left in Italy’s traditions.
I was a student of Mario Einaudi (son of postwar Italy’s first, Liberal, President), in the United States, a very long time ago. He made his students read Croce, of course.