The Firm Europhilia of the Italian Democratic Party

Abstract

While Italy has for long been a Europhile country, public opinion has recently become more critical of the EU, and populist parties have been able to consolidate their support by relying on Eurosceptical rhetoric. This chapter aims to shed light on the relationship between the Partito Democratico—the main centre-left party in Italy—and the European integration project and the EU institutions more generally. Our empirical analyses are presented in three main sections. (a) Relying on Eurobarometer data, the chapter describes the general background to the patterns emerging in Italian public opinion in recent years. (b) Content analysis of the party manifesto for the 2019 EP election offers a discussion of how the Partito Democratico addressed EU-related issues. (c) Human content analysis was carried out on Facebook messages published by the official party account during the EP election campaign. While the Italian public’s enthusiasm for Europe has been declining since the 1980s, as far as the Partito Democratico is concerned, findings on both the party manifesto and the controlled communication on Facebook confirm the party’s strong and consistent support for the EU integration project.