ANALYSIS: Italy and Spain, two European democracies testing their own limits

Democracy is also an internal construction site

While Europe watches with justified vigilance the threats from abroad — Putin's Russia, Xi's China, the instability on its southern flank — two of its most populous members are going through institutional crises that deserve the same attention. Giorgia Meloni's Italy is preparing an electoral reform that its opponents describe as a mechanism designed to guarantee her permanent hold on power. Pedro Sánchez's Spain saw its parliament adopt on June 25, 2026 a non-binding resolution calling for his resignation — passed by a heterogeneous coalition that reveals the deep fractures of Spanish democracy.

These two sequences are not equivalent in their severity. The Italian electoral reform touches the fundamental rules of the democratic game. The Spanish crisis is primarily a crisis of governance and legitimacy. But in both cases, founding or long-standing EU member democracies are showing signs of institutional stress that Europe cannot afford to ignore while looking only at its external borders.

Two countries, two histories, one question

Italy and Spain share a modern history marked by late democratic transitions — Italy after Mussolini's fascism, Spain after Franco's dictatorship. In both countries, democratic institutions were built on the ruins of recent authoritarian regimes — in the 1940s for Italy, in the 1970s for Spain. This history gives institutional questions a particular sensitivity: authoritarian drift is not an abstraction from the history books in these countries. It lives in the living memory of part of the population.

It is in this context that current events must be analyzed. Not as imminent catastrophes — neither Italy nor Spain are on the verge of sliding into authoritarianism — but as warning signals that deserve to be read seriously. Democracy is a dynamic equilibrium, not a permanently acquired stable state. And that equilibrium demands constant vigilance, including — especially — in countries that believe themselves immune.

There is a painful irony in watching Europe invest massively in defending Ukrainian democracy — rightly — while looking with relative indifference at the institutional tensions in Italy and Spain. Democracy is not only defended at the borders. It is defended in the parliaments, the courts, the public squares of Milan and Madrid. Sometimes the most dangerous threats are the ones you do not see coming because they wear the costume of legitimacy.

The "Stabilicum": what the reform actually provides

On February 26, 2026, Giorgia Meloni's governing coalition — composed of Fratelli d'Italia, the Lega, and Forza Italia — presented a major electoral reform proposal, unofficially nicknamed the "Stabilicum" by its supporters. The text calls for a shift to a fully proportional system for elections to the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, combined with a seat bonus: 70 additional seats in the Chamber and 35 in the Senate would be allocated to the coalition winning more than 40% of the vote in the first round.

If the result falls between 35% and 40% for two different formations, a runoff between the two leading political forces would determine the beneficiary of the bonus. The reform would target the 2027 legislative elections, according to the timeline announced by the majority. Its proponents present it as an instrument of "governmental stability" — allowing the winning coalition to govern effectively without depending on unstable minor coalition partners.

The opposition's arguments: a reform tailor-made for power

The Italian opposition — the Partito Democratico, the Five Star Movement, Alleanza Verdi-Sinistra — denounced the reform as a mechanism designed precisely to keep Meloni in power indefinitely. Their central argument: current polls give the right-wing coalition between 42% and 45% of voting intentions. With the Stabilicum, that score would be more than enough to trigger the seat bonus that would guarantee a comfortable parliamentary majority — even if the coalition lost ground before 2027. The mechanism structurally favors the coalition currently in power that designed the reform.

Italian constitutional scholars have also raised serious questions about the compatibility of certain provisions with the Italian Constitution of 1948 — notably the clauses on equality of suffrage and proportional representation of citizens. Legal challenges before the Constitutional Court are predictable if the text is adopted in its current form. Several prominent jurists have published analyses suggesting the seat bonus as presented could be struck down by the Court — an outcome the governing majority denies but cannot rule out.

Every government proposing an electoral reform presents its intentions as "stabilizing" and "democratic." That is the universal mask for all reforms that consolidate the power of those who propose them. The question is not to judge Meloni's intentions — it is to look at the structural effects of the proposed mechanism. And the structural effects of the "Stabilicum" are clear: they favor the coalition sitting between 40% and 50% of the vote, which is precisely where the Italian right currently stands. Coincidence? Italians can judge for themselves.

From challenger to incumbent: the journey of Fratelli d'Italia

Giorgia Meloni has traveled a remarkable road since her election in September 2022. Rooted in the Italian post-fascist right, the political heir to Gianfranco Fini's movement and the traditions of the MSI (Movimento Sociale Italiano), she gradually adopted the posture of a responsible head of government on the European and international stage — supporting Ukraine, keeping Italy within the framework of NATO and the EU, managing public finances with a degree of orthodoxy in line with market expectations.

This normalization was welcomed by some European observers as proof that a sovereigntist right can govern within democratic norms. Others interpreted the same trajectory with more skepticism: Meloni is progressively consolidating her power, avoiding frontal confrontations with Brussels while advancing a conservative agenda on migrants' rights, family policy, and cultural values. The electoral reform fits this second reading — a step toward institutional consolidation more discreet than Orbán's methods, but trending in a similar direction.

The Orbán precedent: what Italy should avoid

The reference to Orbán's Hungary is unavoidable in analyzing the Italian electoral reform. Orbán used exactly the same type of mechanism — an electoral law favoring large coalitions and granting disproportionate seat bonuses — to guarantee parliamentary supermajorities that then allowed him to modify the Constitution, appoint favorable judges to the Constitutional Court, and control public media. In Hungary, each reform seemed reasonable in isolation. The cumulative effect produced what political scientists call an "illiberal democracy."

Italy is not Hungary. Its civil society is more active, its media more pluralistic, its opposition stronger, its constitutional institutions more deeply rooted. But the mechanism of drift — using the resources of power to modify the rules of the game in one's favor — is the same. And it deserves to be named clearly before the cumulative effects become irreversible, not after.

Meloni is a capable and intelligent leader. She has managed European politics better than many predictions suggested. But a leader's intelligence does not immunize her from the universal temptation of those in power: the urge to modify the rules to stay longer. The "Stabilicum" may not be an authoritarian drift. But it resembles that temptation more than anything else. And that is sufficient reason to name it.

The European Commission and the rule of law

The European Commission is monitoring developments in Italy through its annual Rule of Law Report mechanism. This mechanism, introduced following the Hungarian and Polish crises, allows the Commission to flag concerning trends in member states. Electoral reforms that reduce representativeness or concentrate power can theoretically fall within the scope of these flagging procedures.

In practice, the Commission is cautious in its judgments on member states' electoral reforms — which are formally matters of national law. As long as the text has not been adopted and national constitutional remedies have not been exhausted, Brussels will remain in observation mode rather than intervention mode. But signals of concern have been sent privately. Several members of the European Parliament, notably from the S&D group (socialists and democrats) and the Greens, have publicly questioned the Commission on the matter.

European partners: between alliances and disagreements

Meloni has built valuable political alliances within the EU — notably with conservatives of the EPP (European People's Party), who need the votes of Fratelli d'Italia to maintain their majority in the European Parliament. These alliances create a natural brake on the sharpest criticism the EPP might formulate about the Italian electoral reform. The political logic of the European majority sometimes takes precedence over consistency on democratic principles.

France and Germany, traditionally the informal guardians of democratic norms in Europe, have adopted a posture of quiet commentary rather than direct challenge. This restraint is partly justified by respect for national sovereignty, partly by the fact that neither Paris nor Berlin has a perfectly unblemished democratic model to exhibit. But it contributes to the impression that Europe applies its democratic standards only to countries in the eastern part of the continent, not to the historical founding members.

There is a form of double standard in the EU on rule-of-law questions. When Hungary or Poland deviate, Europe brings out the major procedures. When Italy proposes a tailor-made electoral reform, we talk about "prudence" and "respect for national sovereignty." This asymmetry is not sustainable. Democratic principles cannot be applicable only to countries in the eastern part of the continent. Either it is a universal standard, or it is not a standard at all.

The June 25, 2026 censure vote

On June 25, 2026, the Spanish Congress of Deputies — the lower chamber of parliament — adopted by 178 votes to 171, with one abstention, a non-binding resolution calling on Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to resign. This resolution, presented by the conservative opposition (Partido Popular of Alberto Núñez Feijóo), received the support of Vox (far right) and, more surprisingly, of Junts per Catalunya — the Catalan independence party whose support is usually crucial to the Sánchez government's survival.

The non-binding nature of the resolution is fundamental: it has no legal effect. Sánchez is not required to resign. The government described the vote as "a political act with no concrete effect" and reaffirmed its intention to continue governing until the end of the legislature. But symbolically, the vote says something important: a majority of the lower house — however heterogeneous, however contradictory in its motivations — considers that the current prime minister has lost the confidence needed to govern.

The improbable coalition: PP, Vox, and Junts in the same camp

The coalition that voted for the censure resolution is one of the most unlikely in recent Spanish politics. The conservative PP, the far-right Vox, and Junts per Catalunya — whose leader Carles Puigdemont lives in exile in Belgium to avoid Spanish justice — have virtually nothing in common programmatically. The conservatives of the PP and the nationalists of Vox are fiercely opposed to the Catalan independence movement that Junts champions. What these three forces share is only opposition to Sánchez.

This coalition of convenience reveals a structural fragility in the Spanish prime minister's position. Sánchez has governed since 2023 through a coalition of parties with contradictory interests — socialists, radical left (Sumar), Basque and Catalan independence parties. This coalition is arithmetically precarious. Every legislative vote is a negotiation. Every concession to one coalition partner risks alienating another. When Junts — whose support was partly purchased through controversial amnesty measures for Catalan independence activists — decides to vote against him, the fragility of that balance becomes visible.

Spanish politics is a spectacle of permanent acrobatics. Sánchez governs by holding together forces that should be incompatible. That is his talent and his burden. When Junts votes with Vox to ask him to leave, it proves that coalitions of convenience have limits — and that the partners who gave you power can take it back on a whim. This fragility is not Sánchez's alone. It is the fragility of an electoral system that makes stable majorities almost impossible to build.

The trial involving Sánchez's wife: a case that divides

The Spanish political crisis is fueled by a series of scandals surrounding Pedro Sánchez and those close to him. The most widely covered is the judicial investigation involving his wife, Begoña Gómez, accused of influence peddling and corruption in matters related to public contracts. Begoña Gómez denies the accusations, and Sánchez's supporters denounce a "judicialization of politics" — an attempt by the opposition to use the courts to topple a government it cannot defeat at the ballot box.

His opponents counter that if the accusations are founded, it is normal for judicial proceedings to run their course, and that the "judicialization" argument is the standard response of governments that refuse to face their accountability. The judicial truth will take the time it takes — Spain's courts are independent and the proceedings are not concluded. What is certain is that the case undermines Sánchez's public image and feeds the perception that his government is surrounded by a web of conflicts of interest that are difficult to defend.

Scandals within the PSOE: an accumulation that weighs heavily

Beyond the personal affair involving Begoña Gómez, the PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español) and its governing partners have been touched by other cases that contribute to a problematic overall image. Socialist elected officials have been implicated in public procurement files in several regions. Questions have been raised about the conditions under which certain political appointees were placed in positions of responsibility in public companies. And the management of the governing coalition — with its permanent compromises, its parliamentary horse-trading, its controversial amnesties — has fed in part of Spanish public opinion a sense of governing "at any price."

These scandals do not constitute a judicial conviction. Several of the ongoing cases are at the preliminary investigation stage, with no formal charges yet established. But their accumulation creates a difficult political context for a government elected on a program of democratic renewal. Political credibility is not measured only by court rulings. It is also measured by the perception that the government holds itself to a higher standard of integrity than its predecessors.

I will say something uncomfortable for Sánchez's supporters: the argument "it is political judicialization" can be true in some cases and false in others. It cannot be automatically applied to every judicial proceeding involving a Socialist. Progressive governments are not immune to corruption. Demanding high standards of integrity is not a right-wing attack. It is a democratic demand that applies to every party, without exception.

The 2024 amnesty law: why it keeps dividing

One of the most controversial decisions of the Sánchez government was the adoption in 2024 of an amnesty law for Catalan independence activists involved in the illegal 2017 referendum — including former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, in exile in Belgium. This law had been negotiated as a condition of Junts per Catalunya's parliamentary support for Sánchez's reelection. It immediately triggered a major constitutional controversy — several senior judges and hundreds of legal scholars described it as unconstitutional.

The Spanish Constitutional Court partially struck down the law, maintaining certain prosecutions. Not all proceedings against Puigdemont were dropped. And Junts's vote for the censure resolution against Sánchez reveals that the amnesty did not even produce the expected political loyalty — Junts obtained what it wanted and still voted against the government on this text. The political conclusion is painful: Sánchez took a major constitutional risk for a concession that did not guarantee him stability.

The Catalan question: a knot still unresolved

The crisis between Spain's central government and Catalonia is not Sánchez's invention. It runs through Spanish politics across decades, with roots in the history of Francoism and the constitutional promises of 1978. But the way Sánchez managed this file — using concessions to independence parties as political survival currency rather than as part of a lasting resolution strategy — amplified the tensions rather than easing them.

A genuine resolution of the Catalan question would require a grand constitutional agreement among all Spanish political forces — a painful, lengthy, uncertain process that would demand Sánchez, the PP, Vox, and the Catalan parties to negotiate together a new social contract. Nobody seems willing to pay that price. So the crisis perpetuates itself, feeding on itself, consuming political energy that should be devoted to the country's economic and social challenges.

The Catalan question is the Achilles' heel of Spanish democracy. Not because separatism is necessarily right or necessarily wrong — it is a legitimate and complex debate. But because nobody has had the courage to truly resolve it for forty years. We manage, we defer, we buy time with concessions. And each time we buy time, the problem comes back larger. This inability to resolve fundamental knots is the sign of a political class that lacks greatness.

Italian proportionalism and the seat bonus: precedents in Europe

The seat bonus mechanism for the winning coalition is not Meloni's invention. Italy has already experimented with similar mechanisms. The Porcellum (2005 electoral law) provided a majority bonus that was declared unconstitutional in 2014. The Italicum (2015 law, under Renzi) was also partially struck down. The Italian Constitutional Court has a long history of interventions on electoral laws that alter the proportionality of the vote too significantly.

Similar mechanisms exist in other European democracies — Greece also uses a leading-party seat bonus system. The difference lies in the dosage and the political context. A bonus of 70 seats in a Chamber of 400 representatives is a massive bonus — it can transform a plurality of 40% into a supermajority that renders the opposition nearly invisible. It is on this dosage that Italian opponents focus most sharply — and their arguments deserve to be taken seriously.

Electoral reforms and democratic legitimacy: the principle of constitutional "fair play"

A fundamental principle of democratic legitimacy is that the rules of the electoral game should not be modified by those who have the greatest interest in modifying them — that is, the government in power. This is what some constitutional scholars call "constitutional fair play": major electoral reforms should ideally be negotiated with the opposition, grounded in broadly shared principles, and not designed to specifically advantage the party proposing them.

This principle is regularly violated in democracies — in the United States through gerrymandering, in the United Kingdom through a first-past-the-post system that always favors the majority party. But the violation of this principle by everyone does not make it acceptable. In Italy, where the memory of fascism and its institutional manipulations remains present, sensitivity to this principle is particularly strong. And legitimately so.

"Constitutional fair play" is not a revolutionary concept. It is the simple idea that referees should not change the rules of the game mid-match in favor of their own team. In Italy, Meloni is changing the rules. In Spain, Sánchez is buying support with constitutional concessions. In both cases, the question is the same: can one govern durably on rules that half the country perceives as unfair? Historically, the answer is no.

The Spanish proportional system and its effects

Spain uses a proportional closed-list electoral system with provincial constituencies. This system produces a relatively faithful representation of Spanish political diversity — but also a fragmentation that makes absolute majorities extremely rare. Since the 2015 elections, the country has been living under a regime of minority governments, dependence on regional parties, and repeated elections. Spanish politics has become, for some observers, the global laboratory of fragmented governance.

This fragmentation has paradoxical effects. On one side, it forces governments to negotiate and seek compromise — which can be democratically healthy. On the other, it creates chronic instability, short-term governance, and structural dependence on parties like Junts that can exercise permanent blackmail on the government in exchange for parliamentary support. This system does not favor difficult long-term reforms — it favors short-term political survival.

The rise of Vox and the polarization of the political landscape

The presence of Vox — a far-right party founded in 2013 that won as much as 15% in national elections — in the coalition that voted the censure resolution against Sánchez is a reminder of the growing polarization of the Spanish political landscape. Vox is the first far-right party to enter the Spanish parliament since the end of Francoism. Its presence, its rhetoric on immigration, its nationalist positions, and its opposition to women's rights and LGBTQ+ minority rights have permanently changed the country's political landscape.

For Sánchez, the rise of Vox is paradoxically a political resource as much as a threat. By framing every election as a choice between his government and a "PP+Vox" coalition, he mobilizes his left-wing base and maintains coalition discipline in the face of the common enemy. But this polarization strategy has a cost: it prevents any serious dialogue with part of the moderate conservative opposition, perpetuates fragmentation, and contributes to a political climate that exhausts ordinary Spanish citizens.

Vox exists because some Spaniards feel unrepresented by the traditional system. That is a reality the Spanish left prefers to ignore in favor of moral condemnation. The moral condemnation is right. It is also insufficient. Far-right parties do not disappear when you denounce them. They disappear when the causes that brought them into being are addressed by real policies. Spain should think about that.

The similarities between the Italian and Spanish crises

Despite their different natures, the Italian and Spanish crises share several structural characteristics. First similarity: in both cases, it is the electoral law or its application that lies at the heart of the political conflict. In Italy, the rules are being modified; in Spain, parliamentary support is being negotiated against constitutional concessions. In both cases, the fundamental rules of the democratic game are being used as political resources rather than treated as a sacred common framework.

Second similarity: in both countries, the opposition and the majority communicate less and less — parliamentary debates are less and less exchanges of arguments and more and more political communication exercises aimed at respective electoral bases. This dialogic disengagement is a serious symptom of democratic crisis, harder to address than disputes over specific legislative texts. And it is visible both at Montecitorio (the Italian parliament) and at the Congreso de los Diputados in Madrid.

The fundamental differences: severity and reversibility

But the differences are as important as the similarities. The Italian electoral reform — if adopted in its current form — structurally modifies the representation system in a potentially lasting way. It is a foundational threat that touches the rules of the game. The Spanish crisis, with a non-binding resolution and a prime minister who refuses to resign, is primarily a crisis of governability and perceived legitimacy — serious, destabilizing, but more easily reversible through the normal electoral process.

Italy faces a long-term institutional risk if the reform passes without constitutional corrections. Spain faces a governmental crisis whose natural resolution comes through elections or through a reshaping of the parliamentary coalition. These two types of crisis demand different responses — and Europe should treat them with the same analytical rigor, even if their trajectories differ.

What I observe in both cases is a deficit of shared constitutional culture. In Italy, the majority treats the Constitution as a governance tool rather than as a social contract. In Spain, the 1978 Constitution has become a battlefield rather than a terrain of agreement. In both countries, the political parties have stopped treating their basic law as something that transcends them. That may be the deepest crisis of all — deeper than specific reforms or particular scandals.

In Italy: an active civil society facing power

Italy is not reducible to its political parties and its succession of governments. Its civil society — unions, associations, universities, independent media, civil rights organizations — remains one of the most vibrant in Europe. This civic vitality played a crucial role in resisting institutional drift in recent Italian history — from the rise of Berlusconism in the 1990s to attempts at media concentration. It constitutes today a real counterweight to the electoral reform proposed by Meloni.

Jurists, academics, investigative journalists, and citizen organizations have publicly dissected the "Stabilicum" mechanism, alerted public opinion to its potential effects, and mobilized the available constitutional remedies. This capacity for civic analysis and mobilization is a democratic resource that outside observers often underestimate when assessing the democratic health of a country. In Italy, civil society did not wait for the reform to be adopted before analyzing its risks and informing the public debate.

In Spain: a free press in a fragmented landscape

Spanish democracy benefits from a relatively free and pluralistic press — reference media such as El País, El Mundo, La Vanguardia, and new online media represent a broad political spectrum. This plurality is a protection against the concentration of information and control of the political narrative. It makes it harder for any actor — government or opposition — to entirely dominate the public debate.

But the fragmentation of the media landscape also has its downsides. It contributes to polarization — every segment of political opinion has its reference media, its experts, its narratives, its preferred facts. This phenomenon of "information bubbles" is not specific to Spain — it is a global challenge for contemporary democracies. But in a context of legitimacy crisis like the one the Sánchez government is traversing, media fragmentation amplifies tensions rather than calming them. Citizens who no longer share the same basic facts struggle to build the collective trust necessary for democratic governance.

Civil society and a free press make no noise. They deliver no parliamentary speeches, no presidential declarations. But they are often the last line of defense when political institutions fail. In Italy and Spain, they exist, they resist, they inform. That is a reason for hope I do not want to omit from this analysis. The crises are real. So is the resistance.

The EU as guardian of member democracies: an ambition still unfinished

The Polish crisis, the Hungarian crisis, and now the tensions in Italy and Spain raise a fundamental question about the European Union's capacity to protect democracy in its member states. The EU has tools: Article 7, the rule-of-law mechanism, conditionality of European funds. It has used them — with mixed results in Poland and Hungary. But these tools are slow, procedurally cumbersome, and politically costly for European institutions that must maintain governing majorities.

And these tools are even less suited to crises like those in Italy or Spain — which do not constitute flagrant violations of European norms but institutional tensions that accumulate progressively. The EU knows how to punish obvious violations. It is less well equipped to preventively support member democracies that drift slowly. This is an institutional blind spot that Europe should correct.

Democracy as daily work, not a permanent achievement

The most important lesson these two crises teach is not specific to Italy or Spain. It is universal: democracy is not a stable state reached once and for all. It is daily work, constant vigilance, a renewed will to respect the rules of the game even when modifying them would be advantageous. Countries that forget this truth — that believe their institutions are strong enough to withstand any abuse — take a real risk.

Twenty-first-century Europe faces pressures that test this vigilance from every direction — populism, disinformation, economic crises, migration flows, external threats. In this context, the internal crises in Italy and Spain are not anomalies. They are the reflection of a continent seeking its balance between the imperatives of effective governance and the demands of representative democracy. Finding that balance requires more than good intentions. It requires strong institutions, active checks on power, and informed, engaged citizens.

I end this analysis with a simple conviction: the fate of Italian and Spanish democracy does not only concern Italians and Spaniards. It concerns every European who understands that the Union is only as strong as each of its members. An EU with two large members whose institutions are faltering is a weaker EU in the face of Putin, in the face of Beijing, in the face of all those who are betting on our internal implosion. Democracy is not only defended at the borders. It is defended in every European parliament, every day.

The memory of fascism in Italy: a legacy still present

To understand why the Italian electoral reform provokes such a strong reaction in part of public opinion, one must take into account the country's historical memory. Italy lived under Mussolini's fascism from 1922 to 1943. The Constitution of 1948 was written precisely to make the return of concentrated, unchecked power impossible. Specific provisions — on press freedom, on the plurality of parties, on representation mechanisms — were designed as ramparts against the re-emergence of fascism. These provisions are not legal abstractions for those who know this history. They are institutional scars.

Giorgia Meloni herself is aware of this sensitivity. Her efforts to distance herself from the most extreme positions of her political tradition, her declarations of support for NATO and the EU, her symbolic gestures condemning fascism: they reflect a deliberate attempt to distance herself from that legacy. But the persistent wariness of part of the Italian left toward any electoral mechanism that concentrates power must be understood in this historical context — not as paranoia, but as legitimate institutional memory.

The memory of Francoism in Spain: forty years, and the wounds remain

Spain lived under Francisco Franco's dictatorship from 1939 to 1975. The Constitution of 1978 and the democratic transition that preceded it are relatively recent achievements — there are Spaniards alive today who remember the Francoist regime. The question of historical memory — the recognition of the dictatorship's crimes, the excavation of mass graves from the Civil War, the debate over the 1977 amnesty law that immunized Francoist crimes — remains a subject of deep political division in Spain.

In this context, the rise of Vox — a party that cultivates rhetorical ties with a certain nostalgia for Francoist order — is perceived differently by different generations of Spaniards. For some younger voters, Vox is a normal conservative party among others. For older Spaniards with direct memories of Francoism, its presence in the political landscape is a source of anxiety that goes beyond simple political disagreement. These generational differences in perception complicate the Spanish political dialogue and contribute to the polarization that all actors deplore but few have the courage to address directly.

Historical memory is not just one political argument among others. It is the substrate on which democratic institutions rest. Peoples who have experienced recent dictatorships have a sensitivity to institutional drift that those who have not experienced them struggle to understand. This sensitivity must be respected — even when it is instrumentalized politically by some actors. The scars of history carry no ideology. They simply say: we have already seen this road. It does not lead where we would want to go.

In Italy: the path of constitutional dialogue

A solution to the Italian electoral reform exists — it simply requires the governing majority to agree to negotiate with the opposition the contours of a mechanism that is constitutionally defensible and perceived as fair by all political forces. Precedents exist: in the 1990s, Italy managed to reform its electoral system through a cross-party parliamentary commission process — imperfect, lengthy, but legitimate. That model could be reactivated.

If Meloni is genuinely convinced that governmental stability is a legitimate objective — and it is a defensible argument in a country that has had 68 governments since 1946 — she should have the confidence to submit her reform to a cross-party validation process. If the proposal is truly in the general interest and not only in the interest of the current right, it should survive that kind of democratic test. If it cannot, that is itself important information.

In Spain: breaking out of the political survival cycle

Pedro Sánchez, facing his challenges, has an option that many political scientists describe as the most courageous and the most risky: dissolving parliament, calling early elections, and submitting his record to a fresh popular verdict. It is an option he has so far resisted, preferring to keep the government alive through permanent negotiations. But every cycle of short-term survival weakens the government's perceived legitimacy and the prime minister's political capital.

A new electoral mandate — even obtained through a narrow majority — would give Sánchez fresh legitimacy and the possibility of negotiating a coalition on clarified terms. The alternative — governing in a state of permanent crisis until the natural end of the legislature — produces exactly the kind of short-term politics, scandals, and institutional attrition that Spain cannot afford. Spanish democracy needs oxygen. The ballot box is its natural source.

Politicians who avoid elections because they are afraid of losing them are not displaying political wisdom. They are displaying fear. And fear is a poor adviser in a democracy. If Sánchez truly believes in his record and his project, he should have the courage to submit it to a new popular test. If Meloni truly believes her reform is in the interest of all Italians, she should have the courage to negotiate it with the opposition. Democratic courage is not an option. It is an imperative.

Ukraine has been resisting for years with resources the West considers insufficient. Imagine what it could accomplish with full and unreserved support. That is not a rhetorical question. It is a reproach.

What these sequences tell us about our time

Italy preparing an electoral reform its opponents describe as a mechanism for perpetuating power. Spain whose parliament calls for its prime minister's resignation without being able to impose it. These two sequences are a portrait of a Europe that is not immune to the democratic tensions it watches with anxiety in other parts of the world. They are a warning that European democracy is not definitively consolidated — that it demands permanent work, institutional vigilance, and a political will to respect the rules of the game even when it is inconvenient.

These crises are not imminent catastrophes. Neither Italy nor Spain is on the verge of sliding into authoritarianism. But they are signals that democratic institutions are under pressure, that checks on power are being tested, and that the temptation to modify the rules of the game for immediate political advantage is present in democracies once thought immune to it.

The call to accountability — for leaders and citizens

The responsibility to defend these democracies does not belong only to institutions or political parties. It belongs to Italian and Spanish citizens — who have the right and the duty to inform themselves, to engage, to resist demagogic simplifications, and to demand that their elected officials treat constitutional institutions with the respect they deserve. Democracy is not a spectacle. It is participation. And Europeans who say they are tired of politics are precisely those whose absence from democratic debates leaves the field open to those who would like to change its rules.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

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Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a critical, contextual synthesis based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.