Matteo Renzi’s defeat tempered the relief at Austria’s rejection of far right, but leading EU officials do not see the vote as anti-Europe

In the end, the collective sigh of relief heaved in European capitals on Sunday afternoon at the far-right’s defeat in Austria barely lasted the evening.

Despite the joy with which the result was greeted by anti-establishment populists, however, it would be wrong to see Matteo Renzi’s trouncing in Italy’s constitutional referendum as one more Eurosceptic nail in Europe’s coffin. At least, not just yet.

Italy referendum: 'Period of uncertainty' predicted after Matteo Renzi's defeat – live Read more

Shaken by the twin blows of Brexit and Donald Trump’s US presidential election victory, and with key elections taking place in 2017 in France, Germany and the Netherlands, the EU watched warily this weekend as two potentially crunch votes for its future unfolded.

A presidential election in Austria could have resulted in the first freely elected, far-right head of state in western Europe since the second world war, but did not.

Contrary to most polls, Alexander Van der Bellen, the pro-European independent candidate backed by the Greens, comfortably saw off Norbert Hofer from the far-right, anti-immigration Freedom party.

François Hollande, France’s embattled president, hailed the result as “a vote for European unity and tolerance”. Martin Schulz, the president of the European parliament, said Van der Bellen’s victory was “a defeat for nationalism and anti-European, backward-looking populism”. Germany’s vice-chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, said: “A load has been taken off the mind of all Europe.”

But less than eight hours later, Renzi, the Italian prime minister, had announced his resignation after crashing to a 59%-41% defeat in an unnecessary plebiscite on which he staked his political future, heralding a period of uncertainty for Italy, its ailing banks and the eurozone.

With opposition to the referendum led by the populist Five Star Movement (M5S) and Matteo Salvini’s anti-immigration Northern League, rightwing, anti-European figures inside and outside Italy were quick to jump on the result as evidence that the anti-establishment tide rising across Europe had not turned.

Matteo Salvini (@matteosalvinimi) Viva Trump, viva Putin, viva la Le Pen e viva la Lega! https://t.co/r8FXztp9Am

Front National leader Marine Le Pen, who is widely expected to reach the run-off stage of the French presidential election, said Italy’s voters had disowned the EU.

“After the Greek referendum, after Brexit, this Italian no adds a new people to the list of those who would like to turn their backs on absurd European policies that are plunging the continent into poverty,” she said.

The Ukip MEP Roger Helmer even hinted at the imminent demise of the EU:

Roger Helmer (@RogerHelmerMEP) Let's be clear: Italy has voted against the EU. Soon, there may no longer be an EU from which to Brexit.

In truth, there is little to show that the result was anti-European: this was not Italy’s Brexit moment. Some voters, including establishment figures such as the former prime ministers Mario Monti and Massimo D’Alema, objected to Renzi’s proposed reforms.

Others disliked the prime minister and his government. Many were registering their protest at an economy that has averaged one year of growth over the past five decades.

It is by no means clear that if snap elections were called, which is no certainty, a majority of no voters on Sunday would cast their ballot for M5S or the Northern League, both of which are critical of the EU and have said they would back a referendum on Italy’s euro membership.

Leading EU figures stressed they did not see the Italian vote as a victory for anti-European forces, or analogous to Brexit. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said she was sad the vote had not gone Renzi’s way, “but it is of course a domestic Italian decision that we must respect.”

Pierre Moscovici, the European commissioner for economic affairs, warned against turning the Italian result into a psychodrama, insisting it was not an anti-EU vote.

Referendum result may lead nowhere for Italy's Five Star and Northern League Read more

“The populists in Europe are always trying to run any vote into a pro-EU or anti-EU vote. They are wrong and they will lose,” Moscovici said, adding that Hofer’s defeat showed there was nothing inevitable about the rise of the far right in Europe.

France’s finance minister, Michel Sapin, said the referendum was “wasn’t about Europe”. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, said the result changed little, even for Italy’s troubled banks. “The problems we have today are the problems we had yesterday and they still have to be dealt with. That process will continue,” he said.

Markets, similarly, reacted with relative equanimity. Traders had largely anticipated Renzi’s defeat and priced in the result. An initial fall in the value of the euro on Sunday night was due mainly to surprise at the scale of the defeat, and the currency quickly recovered its losses on Monday.

Many analysts were sanguine, too, pointing out that Italy will soon welcome its 65th government since the second world war and a majority of Italians cast their votes for the status quo and against change. It was Renzi, not his opponents, who wanted to reform the system.

Luigi Scazzieri of the Centre for European Reform predicted that Italy’s next government would be made up “of the same political majority currently supporting Renzi, with the possible addition of Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party”.

A takeover by M5S is “unlikely either now or in the next election”, Scazzieri said, not least because planned electoral reforms will produce a form of proportional representation that will make it extremely difficult for any single party to form a government. “Italy is unlikely to be the domino that leads to more instability in Europe,” he said.

But coming on the day that 46% of Austrian voters voted for the candidate of a party founded by a former SS officer, the Italian referendum result further destabilises the EU at the most inopportune moment and underlines the real threat to Europe’s mainstream leaders from the populist revolt.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, played down any sense of crisis about the result in Italy. Photograph: Yorgos Karahalis/AP

Christian Lindner of Germany’s opposition pro-business Free Democrats said the eurozone faced “turbulence ahead” and warned the German government not to give in to demands for debt relief from Italy.

The German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, was probably being diplomatic when he insisted the referendum result was “not the end of the world” and he had “full confidence in the Italian authorities to manage this situation”.

He may have been rather more truthful when he added that Germany was watching developments in Italy “with concern” and Sunday’s events were perhaps “not a positive development in the case of the general crisis in Europe”.

Additional reporting by Kate Connolly in Berlin