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13 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 10 MARCH 2021 OPINION Martin J Bull "IT is our darkest hour: but we will make it." In March 2020, the (now former) prime minister of Italy, Giuseppe Conte, echoing the words of Winston Churchill, summed up the depth of his country's cri- sis in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is easy, with hindsight, to forget the scale and unprecedented nature of the emergency a year ago. Italy initially faced the pandemic alone, the first liberal de- mocracy to be hit by the virus. The government delayed and hesitat- ed in a series of contradictory responses between the discovery of the first case on February 21 and a national lockdown on March 11. The attempt to contain the virus failed and the country's health systems were close to being overrun in the region of Lombardy. Two images beamed around the world sum up days that, in Italy, will never be forgotten: people singing the national anthem from their balconies during lock- down; and a long queue of army vehicles in Lombardy taking away hundreds of corps- es because the region could no longer deal with them. After registering one of the highest death tolls in the world since last March, the country is still in the grip of the pandem- ic under a new government led by Mario Draghi. Yet the pandemic has had a curious, if not paradoxical, effect on the country. Italians seem to be rediscovering the val- ue and importance of their (and Europe's) political institutions. Italy long stood out in western Europe for having the lowest levels of trust in the state and some of the institutions com- prising it (government, parliament, par- ties). At one time, this lack of trust at home was offset by Italians having one of the highest levels of trust in the European Union, almost as a counterweight to the perceived deficiencies of their own polit- ical system. Then came the economic crash of 2007- 09 and the years of austerity, and the same attitudes developed about Europe. It was no longer seen as a saviour but as responsible for imposing spending cuts. Anti-establishment, populist parties rose to fame by combining anti-Europeanism with a vitriolic narrative against political elites. By the eve of the pandemic, therefore, Italians found themselves in a tricky place, with widespread distrust in both their own political system and the role of the EU. A change of heart Then, as COVID spread, everything changed. Despite a poor governmental re- sponse, the crisis was accompanied by an extraordinary, positive shift in attitudes towards the public authorities. By late March 2020, 94% of Italians gave a positive evaluation of the performance of the public health authorities in manag- ing the pandemic, 88% the Department of Civil Protection, 82% the government and 77% the regional governments. Conte's personal ratings rocketed dur- ing the first wave. People rating his per- formance as 6 or above (out of 10) rose to an astonishing 71% in March, far outstrip- ping the ratings of his immediate prede- cessors. This shift was not necessarily unique to Italy but, because of the history of distrust, is more significant there. By the end of 2020, confidence levels in the state had risen by 11% compared with 2019, in parliament by 8% and in regional governments by 6%. These are all higher than those registered in 2009, the year af- ter the financial crisis took hold. The only exception is the political parties them- selves. Here, confidence remains chroni- cally low. Something similar has been happening in relation to the nation's view of the EU, although with a slightly different trajecto- ry. In the first wave, Italians felt isolated and unsupported by the EU. Only 35% of Italians registered a positive evaluation of its performance in the pandemic in March 2020. Yet, that judgment had a short lease of life, as the EU gradually exerted its su- pra-national capacity and brought togeth- er a series of COVID-19 support meas- ures. Italy has been awarded the highest proportion of funds from the EU's Recov- ery Fund. A European Parliament survey at the end of 2020 revealed that 69% of Italians be- lieve that the recovery from the pandemic will be quicker thanks to the EU. The per- centage of Italians with a positive view of EU membership has leapt by 11% in a year and general confidence levels in the EU by 5% in a year. True, these figures are still low by pre- 2008 standards and do not take into ac- count the EU's poor performance in the recent vaccine rollout. However, this is unlikely to undermine what appears to be a groundswell of support for what will be a long-term benefit of immense propor- tions in the EU's recovery programme. A eurocrat for Italy This change is also reflected at the politi- cal level in the appointment, in January, of Draghi, former president of the European Central Bank. A technocrat running Italy is perhaps not surprising in view of the continuing disdain Italians have for their political par- ties; but that he is a eurocrat might seem strange after a decade of rising euroscep- tism. However, the anti-EU populist opposi- tion appears to have run its course, blunt- ed by a dawning reality on Italians of the importance of belonging to this club. One year after the national emergen- cy of March 2020, the pandemic appears to have laid the basis for a fundamental change in the thinking of Italians. The pandemic had been preceded by a decade of angry politics in which populist extremism outbid EU-imposed austerity. Now it seems Italians, scarred by COV- ID, may be ready to return to the Europe- an fold and a politics of pragmatism. Did COVID end Italy's populist moment? Martin J Bull is Professor of Politics at University of Salford theconversation.com Distressing scenes in Italy as it faced the pandemic