Defence and NATO bases in Italy, what it takes to use them

That the Americans cannot use military bases on Italian territory without a passage from Palazzo Chigi seems established, but even on the necessity - formal or even just political - of Parliament's involvement there is little doubt: "If the US decides to use their facilities as part of a campaign against Iran, the government cannot do without passing through the Chamber and Senate". These are the thoughts of two of Italy's most authoritative constitutionalists, Michele Ainis and Cesare Mirabelli, who were asked: is it legitimate for our country in light of the Constitutional Charter - which in Article 11 'repudiates war' - for the US to use bases in Italy for actions against Tehran?

Defence Minister Guido Crosetto explained that US bases can only be used after the OK of our government, but that still such a request has not arrived. But the issue is more subtle, and involves the famous Article 5 of the NATO treaty, the one on mutual aid between member states. "We have Article 11," Michele Ainis told Ansa, "which forbids us wars of aggression, and the only admissible war is defensive war. Italy joined NATO in 1949, he recalls, and there is Article 5. But here it would be, says Ainis, "to act as a springboard outside the NATO defence system, it is a war waged against Iran not to defend the NATO bloc, but for an aggression against a third country. It is one thing to allow the US to have bases on your territory within NATO, it is another to use these bases for a war horizon outside NATO'.

So can the bases be used? "If I had to say," replied the jurist, "it should not be possible". The government, however, 'should report to Parliament, because Parliament is the dominus of the entry into war. Article 78 says so, even though the state of war was never deliberated. Parliament cannot be bypassed. Any decision that has to do with direct military support or intervention or support for another state cannot but have a parliamentary 'blessing'."

This was the case, for example, in 2003 - Iraq invasion - when Parliament passed resolutions after the report of the then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. 'Parliament,' says Cesare Mirabelli, former president of the Constitutional Court, 'has the central competences of the system, even if today I see this centrality as somewhat feeble. A government report would be adequate. There can be an initiative by Parliament itself that asks to be informed. The resolution can bind the government in the political relationship: if there is a conflict of direction, it can lead to no-confidence'.

If it could stop the Americans? 'Parliament,' Mirabelli replies, 'can give directions that can be politically binding on the government. Parliament necessarily has to say something for the state of war, which has never been pronounced so far. In our experience, however, wars are not declared and war is a fact and not a legal act. There is a spiral into which we enter with individual interventions, which then explode into war situations: it is the 'world war in pieces' of which Pope Francis spoke". In principle, in any case, 'our country does not participate in acts of war'. Then 'there are international agreements, there is a principle of collaboration with the US and there are bases in Italy that are in use by NATO and the US, at Sigonella in particular. I believe they can use them, obviously not without the knowledge and consent of the government'.