Raffaele Costa’s liberalism has much to teach Meloni and her colleagues

He was first elected to the Chamber of Deputies with the PLI in 1976 – a difficult year – in Cuneo. There, still in Piedmont, the only full quota was achieved, ensuring a Liberal presence in Parliament even in a year that saw an all-time low in voter turnout, when the polarisation between the PCI and the DC drained votes from the smaller parties. Since then, Raffaele Costa has been a man of government, following and interpreting in his own way the renewal of Italian politics, during a period that began precisely with the great fear of 1976 and the need to make the national economy more competitive and efficient, whilst major international agreements were being renewed, with NATO engaged in its final confrontation with the USSR.

He was the champion of a form of popular liberalism, as was perhaps only possible in his part of the world, where people voted for the PLI not to assert a (somewhat snobbish) secular otherness, but because that was the party of those who kept the country running and governed it well. Free from parochial rhetoric and certainly no sympathiser of the recent, entirely food-and-wine-centred hype surrounding the Langhe, he was nevertheless deeply attached to his constituents and to Mondovì, which he never left and where, for decades, he published the combative fortnightly "Il Duemila". He took pride in his election as president of the Province of Cuneo, a role he fulfilled with dedication after having served on several occasions as a minister and undersecretary.

Perhaps the proof – albeit indirect – of his deep roots in the province of Cuneo came from the Turin electorate when, with a touch of snobbery, they rejected him as mayor of their city, albeit by fewer than 5,000 votes. He possessed political acumen and knew how to make it count, even starting out from a small faction within a minor party. His local support base, which never wavered, was a strength that enabled him to upset the internal balance within the PLI, bringing Alfredo Biondi to the leadership and defining in advance the two factions within Italian liberalism, which would later split between joining the Democratic Party – as Valerio Zanone did – and opting for the various forms taken by the centre-right, as did Costa, who first joined the UDC, and Biondi (along with many other leading figures in the liberal movement).

He had, to put it affectionately, a fixation on making the state run smoothly. A vast programme that led him to take on inefficient government departments, hospitals to inspect, civil servants devoted to their cappuccinos, and unapproachable managers who were always laconically ‘out of the office’. A liberal paradox, come to think of it, because if bureaucracy could actually function – that is, if it could be purged of its statist original sin – then liberalism would be utterly pointless. Even in socialist republics, anti-bureaucratic battles were publicised, as if the problem lay with malicious offices or among lazy, or worse, employees; yet not a shred of extra efficiency was ever introduced into the state apparatus.

Costa was well aware of this, but he also knew that, for ordinary citizens, the front line of the state consists of public offices, hospitals, and even private services – provided they are subject to regulations – and that the value of democracy and the rule of law also depended on the immediate perception of minor issues. He sought to reconcile his liberal vision with this role as an ombudsman, which he had carved out for himself and which he continued to fulfil even during his years in government under Giuliano Amato and Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, and later under Silvio Berlusconi.

He had a close-knit family and two children, one of whom inherited his passion for politics and his commitment to the rule of law. Together with another leading figure from Piedmont, Emma Bonino—who was very different from him—he shared a proactive commitment to liberal rights. They died on the same day.