‘Neoliberalism has failed’: Schlein shifts to the left, with an eye on social unrest and young people taking to the streets

Privileges are, first and foremost, those enjoyed by the major energy companies (“energy companies saw their profits rise by 70 per cent, and by 125 per cent in the third quarter: we need a fuel price cap that applies to everyone; we cannot rely on the goodwill of a select few”). But privileges also belong to those who can afford a home, who can afford private healthcare to bypass the waiting lists in the National Health Service, and who can afford to send their children to university, whilst so many middle-class families can no longer do so. Hence the need for greater investment in the National Health Service, for a genuine housing plan for public student accommodation and social housing, and for a series of measures to encourage young people to stay in Italia rather than flee abroad to work (Right to Stay).

As for the crux of the matter – namely, the supply of arms to Ukraine, which Conte wants to halt and which the PD, albeit with a thousand caveats, has continued to support – Schlein chooses to downplay the issue as much as possible. ‘We must insist that international law applies always and to everyone, but alongside the support – which we have rightly never failed to provide – for the invaded people of Ukraine, diplomacy is needed. We need a single European negotiator to secure a fair peace through negotiations, which is not a surrender to the justifications for aggression. There must be a European voice standing alongside the Ukrainian people, calling for a just peace,” says Schlein, without mentioning the words ‘weapons’ or ‘military aid’. And without leaving any room for accusations of ‘double standards’ between Russia and Israel: “We want to be peacemakers and we want to ensure that international law is upheld everywhere. If we had to impose sanctions on Putin, we must also impose sanctions on Netanyahu and his criminal government.’

The programme envisaged by Schlein leans heavily to the left. The Democratic Party secretary is seeking to draw a clear line of opposition against Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s leadership and aims to ‘secure’ the identity-based vote ahead of the polling stations, without forgetting the very young people who drove the ‘No’ vote in last March’s confirmatory referendum on the justice system and who are now filling the squares. ‘In the last few hours, huge numbers of young people have taken to the streets peacefully to assert their right to play a leading role in shaping a better future. Today, we must listen to that demand and make it our own. In some cases, there have been clashes – some of them serious – but no looting and certainly not the street fighting that some were hoping to see. When the younger generations take to the streets, it is good news for democracy; we will not accept attempts to criminalise them, as is happening with the government’s so-called ‘security measures’.”

There was little room, at least in Schlein’s speech in Montepulciano, for the issues of growth and competitiveness. However, during the three-day event, the need for a return to genuine industrial policy planning – with a new governance structure and selective, targeted incentives for businesses – began to emerge. On the other hand, Orlando, one of the leading figures of the ‘correntone’ faction gathered in Montepulciano, in his capacity as head of industrial relations, has already undertaken several trips to industrial districts across the country, visiting both centres of excellence and crisis-hit areas. It is no coincidence that in Montepulciano there was an opportunity to listen not only to the trade union confederations but also to the business community.

“Human capital, energy, international competition – these are the major challenges facing businesses,” emphasised Lucia Aleotti, Vice-President of Confindustria’s Research Centre, during her speech in Montepulciano. Aleotti highlighted the role of the manufacturing sector in underpinning the welfare state (“83 per cent of the resources needed to sustain the welfare state come from workers in companies with more than ten employees – companies that account for just 5 per cent of all businesses in our country”) and focused her speech on the challenges posed by competition from China and the tariffs imposed by the US: ‘Italia, excluding the pharmaceutical sector and large ships, has lost 9 per cent – almost 10 per cent – of its exports.’ According to the vice-president of Confindustria, it is therefore necessary to strengthen businesses and encourage investment in competitive sectors, whilst, on the energy front, considering a mix that also includes nuclear power. Finally, her warning about young people, which resonated with the audience in Montepulciano: “There are 190,000 young people who have left our country in the last five years. Many of them are university graduates. We need to strengthen the link between education and business and promote technical colleges (ITS), where 95 per cent of students find work before completing their studies. If we talk about a demographic problem but then let our young people go abroad, then perhaps we should simply remove it from our agendas.”