The pro-European, anti-populist campaign of Emmanuel Macron will be the inspiration for Italy’s governing centre-left PD party’s pitch to voters in the upcoming general election, Sandro Gozi, Italy’s minister for Europe, has said.



Gozi, a friend of Macron and close ally of the PD leader, Matteo Renzi, told the Guardian at the campaign launch in Milan on Friday: “The election is an Italian choice, but Europe will be issue number one in this general election, and its result affects everyone in Europe”.

PD, riven by factions, is trailing the Five Star Movement (M5S) in the polls, and most people believe the 4 March vote is likely to produce a centre-right government, potentially including the former premier Silvio Berlusconi and the Northern League.

Gozi said the party had “put things back on track” in the last year. “But continued progress will depend on the election. It is the last battle between pro-European open society versus anti European nationalistic closed society.”

Gozi, who is fluent in French and English and was educated at the Sorbonne and LSE, sees himself as part of the “Erasmus generation”, a group of younger leaders who see the European Union not just as a bulwark against nationalist wars, but as a multiplier of sovereignty.

He has also been at the centre of the argument that a stronger Europe can halt populism, rather than feed the alienation on which it thrives. “This has become the real new political cleavage in politics. It is now so obvious,” he said. “Are you confident that Italy can be a key actor in a new Europe capable of taking back control on immigration, security and achieving growth through reshaping the eurozone? Or do you believe the answer lies within our national borders?”

He said his party faced three challenges in the election campaign: “To show that political solutions to the worries that are at the centre of Italian concerns – migration, security and growth – can only be solved in a European context.

“To show there is a radical alternative to the anti-European Le Pen forces represented [in Italy] by Matteo Salvini’s Northern League and to Silvio Berlusconi who pretends to be an ally of the European People’s Party, but wants an alliance with Salvini.

“Finally, throughout we have to show the courage and the audacity of Macron.”

Gozi said that if PD is returned to power Italy can play a central role in pushing for the more integrated democratic eurozone promoted by Macron and Germany’s Social Democrats. He also wants the European parliamentary seats vacated by exiting British MEPs to be elected on a trans-European, rather than national basis, an idea that now has the support of France and Germany.

He said his party has to make a deeper argument that institutional reforms. “Populism has been about a fear of loss of control either due to migration or terrorism. I am very sensitive to this issue, but these fears have been provoked by transnational phenomenon, so populists often give the wrong answer to the right question. The easiest, but worst, answer is to say ‘let us go back and simply control our national borders’.”

Gozi acknowledged that the right’s progress in Italy has been fuelled by fears about migration, mainly from Libya, but said his country was left alone by the rest of Europe to fight for Europe’s dignity.

“Italy’s immigration issue has not been the presence of Europe but the absence of Europe. There was a tragedy of European proportion and our European partners turned their back on this”. Europe, he said, had finally produced a balanced package by funding the Libyan coastguard, securing more humane detention centres, and aiding economic growth in Africa.

“Even now there are countries that take all the burden of refugees – Sweden, Greece, Germany and Italy – and there are other countries – Poland and Hungary – that refuse to take a single refugee. That is unacceptable. You cannot be pro-European when you receive huge EU funds, and then nationalistic when you are asked to take 100 refugees.

“So in future there must be a simple rule: no European funds to those European countries that violate their obligations of solidarity at a moment of crisis.”