Europe: The Day of Reckoning

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Budget crises sweeping the Continent cause the fall of Italy's government

In what has become almost a tradition in Western Europe, the bad news was presented to the public at the height of the summer vacation season in order to lessen the immediate outcry of national pain. With millions of his countrymen at the beaches and in the mountains, Italian Prime Minister Giovanni Spadolini proclaimed a stringent austerity package, describing the proposals as being of "historic proportions." They were indeed, but they also contained political dynamite with an unexpectedly short fuse. Only five days after the big economic squeeze was announced, seven Socialist ministers resigned from Spadolini's 28-member Cabinet last week in a move that in effect felled his 13-month-old government, Italy's 41st since World War II.

The angry Socialists walked out of the five-party coalition to protest the rejection by Parliament of one of the four decrees in the austerity program. The measure, opposed by the oil industry, was designed to curb tax evasion by tightening up fiscal controls on refiners and distributors of petroleum products. It seemed a small matter on which to bring down a government, but the Socialists took the defeat symbolically because it was caused by about 30 Christian Democrat Deputies, the so-called franchi tiratori, or snipers, who, although ostensibly loyal to the government, voted secretly against the measure. "Under these conditions," fumed Socialist Leader Bettino Craxi, "the country is literally ungovernable. Democracy is forced on its knees if powerful pressure groups can prevail over the will of Parliament and the general interest."

It was not the first time that the snipers had sabotaged legislation by the Spadolini coalition, but in the past, the defeated measures usually were soon rewritten and passed on a vote of confidence. This time Craxi seemed to be deliberately seeking to force new elections some time in the autumn in the hope of increasing the Socialists' 10% share of the national vote. Encouraged by healthy Socialist gains in recent local elections, Craxi has made no secret of his ambition to become Italy's first postwar Socialist Prime Minister.

As stunned as everyone else by an August crisis, Spadolini at week's end called a final, two-hour meeting of his Cabinet, which formally dissolved the government. He then visited President Sandro Pertini, 85, to announce the decision. Pertini is expected to confer this week with political leaders of all parties before offering the mandate to form a new government

Italy thus became the latest country to suffer from the epidemic of budget crises that is sweeping the nations of Western Europe. Last week Belgian Prime Minister Wilfried Martens' center-right coalition introduced an austerity budget containing what he called "drastic" cuts in public services and hikes in value-added taxes. Italy and Belgium are the Continent's biggest spenders: their budget deficits amount to 12.6% and 11.6%, respectively, of their gross national products.