Italy’s election. Seeking divine help

Foreign policy may not decide Italy's election, but the Vatican just might

THE trick with Italian foreign policy has always been to strike a balance between Europeanism and Atlanticism; between the voters' deep-felt commitment to European unity and their feelings for a country, the United States, that freed them from Nazi occupation, shielded them from Soviet encroachment and has also offered a new life to millions of their compatriots. Until 2003, this balance was quite easy to strike. Being a fervent European did not rule out being a loyal ally of America. But the war in Iraq created a starker choice. Just how stark is becoming clearer in the campaign for Italy's general election next month.

The prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has been George Bush's closest ally in Europe after Britain's Tony Blair. He may have chided the Americans over Guantanamo, and even expressed doubts about the wisdom of the war, but this was always from the standpoint of somebody who is fundamentally sympathetic to the Bush administration's world view. His misgivings did not stop him from sending the biggest contingent of coalition forces after those of Britain and America.

At the beginning of March, Mr Berlusconi duly got his reward, when he was given the rare honour of addressing Congress. His visit to Washington received blanket coverage on his own television channels--to such an extent that his centre-left opponents protested, unsuccessfully, to Italy's broadcasting authority.

The outlook of the centre-left, led by a former European Commission president, Romano Prodi, could hardly be more different. Its election programme refers to "Europe" 99 times but to the "United States" only twice. Indeed, it appears to see the superpower as a nuisance, arguing, for example, that "to tackle the problems arising from the world's unipolar orientation, we must aim for an autonomous European defence [capability], even if always linked to the Atlantic Alliance, which is changing profoundly."

Even so, Marta Dassu, director of Aspen Italia, a think-tank, says it is inconceivable that the mild-mannered Mr Prodi would prove an anti-American firebrand once in office. The Italian centre-left has learnt, notably from the experience of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in Spain, that there is more to lose than to gain from provoking the Americans. A Prodi government is more likely to model its foreign policy on Angela Merkel's in Germany. Crucially, notes Ms Dassu, "withdrawal from Iraq is finished as a point of real debate".

This was a matter of life and death in more ways than one. By offering Spain's voters the option of early withdrawal, the Spanish Socialists may unwittingly have given al-Qaeda an incentive to try to influence Spain's 2004 general election. The terrorists seized it with devastating effects when they bombed trains in Madrid days before the vote. Mr Prodi and his allies have dodged that trap by loudly demanding withdrawal while quietly agreeing it should be done in consultation with the Iraqi authorities--a position no different from the government's.

Indeed, it could be argued that the interests of al-Qaeda might now be better served by the return to office of such people as the Northern League's Roberto Calderoli, a former minister whose anti-Islamic outbursts last month sparked a riot in Libya, stirred by Islamic extremists, in which 14 people died. The "theo-con" streak on the Italian right is more pronounced than in, say, Germany or Spain. Conservative Roman Catholics such as Marcello Pera, a member of Mr Berlusconi's Forza Italia party who is speaker of the Senate, are big on defending Europe's Christian roots.

So is Pope Benedict XVI, with whom Mr Pera once wrote a book on the subject. This week, the centre-right was boosted when it was reported (and not denied) that the pontiff intended to welcome Mr Berlusconi to the Vatican ten days before polling day. After an outcry, the prime minister said he would not be going. He would, in any case, have been just one member of a delegation. But an impression was left that the pope favoured Mr Berlusconi.

That could prove invaluable. Polls consistently give the centre-left a 4-5% lead over the centre-right. But they also suggest that some 24-30% of voters remain undecided, and that a disproportionate number are practising Catholics. As so often in the past, the smallest state of all could yet weigh heaviest on Italy's politics.

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