Schlein’s economic programme marks a break with the PD

Winning over the audience at the Teha Forum in Cernobbio is certainly not essential to winning the elections. But it is clear that, for the centre-left, establishing a rapport with a significant section of Italian capitalism is a test of the credibility of the alternative to Giorgia Meloni.

Among the opposition leaders who spoke at the Ambrosetti Forum, Elly Schlein was the one who made the greatest effort to focus on practical matters. The outlook was not the best for the broad coalition, given that, according to a survey carried out amongst the approximately 200 entrepreneurs and managers present in Cernobbio, 68.3 per cent expressed a positive view of the government’s performance, whilst 83 per cent expressed a negative view of the opposition. 

Schlein sought to dispel preconceptions with a speech that was half theoretical and half practical. In the first part, she set out a federalist political vision for the European Union: more cooperation and fewer national vetoes to tackle the crises of our time. In the second part, however, she outlined a series of concrete proposals aimed primarily at the challenges facing businesses: energy and innovation. The problem with Schlein’s agenda, however, is that it is somewhat contradictory: on the one hand, it fails to come to terms with the centre-left’s past and present; on the other, it is not very different from certain policies pursued by the Meloni government.

Let’s look at the section on innovation. The PD secretary spoke of the importance of artificial intelligence and the need for a European industrial plan to build ‘strategic autonomy’, given that Europe must not resign itself to ‘choosing between two models that do not resemble us’, such as the Chinese or American ones. With regard to the ‘competitive gap’ in AI, Schlein referred to the Draghi and Letta reports. However, it remains unclear whether she has fully engaged with the details contained in those documents.

While the topic of artificial intelligence naturally involves investment, the most politically significant part of Draghi’s Competitiveness Report is precisely its radical criticism of the AI Act: legislation that creates uncertainty, increases the cost of investment – thereby indirectly favouring American or Chinese Big Tech firms – and risks excluding European companies from the cutting edge of innovation. In short, the AI Act is precisely what pushes Europe further away from technological autonomy, thereby making it strategically dependent on innovation produced by others. It is no coincidence that one of Mario Draghi’s first demands – supported by companies in the sector but only partially accepted by the Commission – was the suspension of the AI Act. The problem, according to Schlein’s account, is that the European Parliament’s rapporteur for the AI Act (and its greatest political advocate) is Brando Benifei, who served as rapporteur on European regulation whilst he was head of the PD delegation in Strasbourg. On this point, it is not entirely clear what the PD’s position is. Because a ‘European industrial plan’ for AI requires not only funding but also a regulatory framework. It is all very well to talk about ‘strategic autonomy’, but is it the Draghi line or the Benifei line?

The other set of proposals that the PD secretary presented to the audience in Cernobbio essentially concerned energy and investment for businesses. The watchword is ‘decarbonisation’. And Schlein presented a package of five measures to be funded using the 0.6 percentage points of GDP flexibility granted by the European Commission – amounting to 14 billion euros – for the energy transition. 1) Allocation of 2 billion to the Conto Termico scheme to replace natural gas boilers with heat pumps; 2) 3 billion for the ‘Piano Casa’ scheme to improve the energy efficiency of 100,000 social housing units; 3) 4 billion to incentivise businesses to electrify industrial processes; 4) 3 billion for public transport; 5) 2 billion to improve the efficiency of electricity grids and energy storage systems.

The starting point for this package is that it concerns existing measures, which, according to Schlein, should be funded to a greater extent through the European ‘flexibility’ secured by the Meloni government: it was as a result of Italy’s initiative in Brussels that the national safeguard clause, amounting to 1.5 percentage points of GDP – initially intended solely for defence – was subsequently extended to energy as well (by 0.6 percentage points).

The other point is that, for the most part, these measures contradict the PD’s political stance. Take, for example, the incentive to replace gas boilers with heat pumps. It was the PD, whilst in government, that included the (natural gas) Boiler Bonus in the Superbonus, and it was the Meloni government, through the 2025 Budget Act, that scrapped it (including from the Conto Termico 3.0 scheme). So first the PD spent billions to promote gas boilers, and now it is asking for more to be spent to phase them out. A similar situation arises with social housing. The building grants—all introduced while the PD was in government—cost over 200 billion euros, of which just 2–3 billion (around 1 per cent) went to public housing. When Minister Giorgetti decided to put an end to the squandering of the Superbonus, the PD took to the barricades, even tabling a document calling for its extension for at least ten years. It was then the Meloni government that introduced the need for a Housing Plan to regenerate social housing, for which Schlein is now calling for more funding.

Then there is the issue of renewables. Schlein proposes a ‘national task force’ to ‘halve authorisation times’. But the delays are less a bureaucratic problem than a political one, and often involve left-wing administrations which, despite their green rhetoric, hinder the roll-out of renewables. The most striking example is Sardinia, but the problem is wider-ranging. If we look at the latest figures from Terna, we can see that Italy has installed 904 MW more than the target set out in the National Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC), but this figure is negatively affected by the performance of the progressive regions: Campania, Emilia-Romagna, Puglia, Sardinia and Tuscany have installed 1,205 MW less than the PNIEC targets.

It is as though, in order to appear credible to business leaders, the break with the status quo that Schlein is proposing is directed more at how the centre-left is run than at how Giorgia Meloni governs.