page_title: Euroscepticism
section_title: Italy
hierarchical_section_title: Euroscepticism / In EU member states / Italy
caption_attribution_description: English: Beppe Grillo
context_page_description: Euroscepticism, also known as EU-scepticism, means criticism of the European Union and European integration. It ranges from those who oppose some EU institutions and policies and seek reform, to those who oppose EU membership outright and see the EU as unreformable. The opposite of Euroscepticism is known as pro-Europeanism, or European Unionism.
  The main sources of Euroscepticism have been beliefs that integration undermines national sovereignty and the nation state, that the EU is elitist and lacks democratic legitimacy and transparency, that it is too bureaucratic and wasteful, that it encourages high levels of migration, or perceptions that it is a neoliberal organisation serving the business elite at the expense of the working class, responsible for austerity and driving privatization.
  Euroscepticism is found in groups across the political spectrum, both left-wing and right-wing and is often found in populist parties. Although they criticise the EU for many of the same reasons, Eurosceptic left-wing populists focus more on economic issues while Eurosceptic right-wing populists focus more on nationalism and immigration.
context_section_description: The Five Star Movement (M5S), an anti-establishment movement founded by comedian Beppe Grillo, originally set itself out as a Eurosceptic party. The M5S received 25.5% of vote in the 2013 general election, becoming the largest anti-establishment and Eurosceptic party in Europe. The party used to advocate a non-binding referendum on the withdrawal of Italy from the Eurozone (but not from the European Union) and the return to the lira. This policy was rejected in 2018, and the M5S's leader has since stated that the "European Union is the Five Star Movement's home", clarifying that the party wants Italy to stay in the EU, even though it remains critical of some of its treaties. The M5S's popular support is distributed all across Italy: in the 2018 general election the party won 32.7% of the popular vote nation-wide, and was particularly successful in central and southern Italy.
  A party that retains a Eurosceptic identity is Lega Nord, a regionalist movement led by Matteo Salvini favouring Italy's exit from the Eurozone and the re-introduction of the lira. When in government, LN approved the Treaty of Lisbon. The party won 6.2% of the vote in the 2014 European Parliament elections, but two of its leading members are presidents of Lombardy and Veneto (where LN gained 40.9% of the vote in 2015).
  In the 2014 European Parliament election the Five Star Movement came second, with 17 seats and 21.2% of the vote after contesting EP seats for the first time. Lega Nord had five seats and The Other Europe with Tsipras had three seats.
  Other minor Eurosceptic organizations include right-wing political parties (e.g., Brothers of Italy, Tricolour Flame, New Force, National Front, CasaPound, National Movement for Sovereignty, the No Euro Movement), far-left political parties (e.g., the Communist Party of Marco Rizzo, the Italian Communist Party) and other political movements (e.g., the Sovereignist Front, MMT Italy). In addition, the European Union is criticized (especially for the austerity and the creation of the euro) by some left-wing thinkers, like the trade unionist Giorgio Cremaschi and the journalist Paolo Barnard, and some academics, such as the economists Alberto Bagnai and Vladimiro Giacché, the philosopher Diego Fusaro and the mathematician Marino Badiale.
  According to the Standard Eurobarometer 87 conducted by the European Commission in spring 2017, 48% of Italians tend not to trust the European Union compared to 36% of Italians who do.
  In the 2019 European election, the Italian Eurosceptic-souverainist right-wing, represented in large part by Lega Nord, obtained negative results and no presidency in the committees of the European Parliament; on the contrary pro-EU Italian Democratic Party member, David Sassoli, was elected President of the European Parliament. Despite its political alliance with Lega for Conte Cabinet, Five Star Movement voted Ursula von der Leyen, member of pro-EU Christian Democratic Union of Germany, as President of the European Commission.
caption: Beppe Grillo, founder of the Italian Five Star Movement.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image ExifOffset": "38", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1518", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1957"}