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Update 6 (July 2005):

Direct democracy or dirty tricks? Policy referendums in Italy and Switzerland

Referendums in Europe are not confined to constitutional issues. In some countries recourse to 'direct democracy' is a not uncommon way of settling (or trying to settle) policy debates. As we note in Chapter 6, Italy and Switzerland are good examples.

June 2005 saw Italians being asked to vote on a complicated four-part question on assisted reproduction (fertility treatment), access to which varies considerably across Europe. Until 2004, Italy had one of the world's laxest regimes - a situation which was perhaps a response to Italy's very low birth rate, but which famously led to a woman in her early sixties giving birth and lurid tales of cloning soon to come. A backlash against all this saw a law pushed through parliament that, to some, swung the pendulum too far the other way: effectively, only stable, heterosexual, co-habiting couples were entitled to seek fertility treatment; sperm and egg donation was prevented, as was genetic screening and the freezing of and research on embryos. Moreover, the law, according to some critics accorded full human rights to embryos. A drive to overturn the law's main provisions began, and the requisite 500,000 signatures were gathered, triggering a referendum.

The referendum campaign itself was bitterly fought. The response of Italy's political parties varied: generally, those in the governing coalition of the right (parties that traditionally claim more Roman Catholic voters and a greater commitment to Catholic values) either refused to instruct their supporters (conservatives Forza Italia and Alleanza Nazionale) or recommended abstention (the populist Lega Nord and the Christian Democratic CCD-UCD). On the left, with the exception of La Margherita (which said supporters should make up their own minds), parties like the social democratic Democratici di Sinistra, the more radical Rifondazione Communista, and the Greens, recommended a yes vote. This would overturn what they claimed was a draconian, discriminatory law that offended against the separation of church and state and threatened to return the country to the days before 1981 when Italians voted overwhelmingly in a referendum to uphold laws allowing abortion. Their view was supported by a number of high profile celebrities, not least the actress Monica Bellucci who, fresh from starring in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, posed for controversial campaigning pictures while pregnant and wondered out loud, 'What do politicians and priests know about my ovaries?'

In fact, unlike some of the politicians, the priests played their hand very cleverly. The Vatican made its support for the restrictionist law plain. The new (German) Pope raised the hackles of the yes campaign by praising the efforts of his Italian clergy to 'enlighten the choices' of his flock and opining that a yes vote constituted 'a threat to life and the family'. However, instead of urging Italy's majority Catholic population to go out and vote no, the Church urged them to stay home and abstain. It may have justified its tactics on the grounds that (in the words of its campaign slogan) 'Life cannot be put to the vote', but in fact it was exploiting a condition applying to all Italian referendums, namely that to have any effect half of all those registered must vote - a condition that has seen every single referendum in the country fail since 1995.

Given this history, we cannot be sure - despite the angry claims of prominent yes campaigners like Stefania Prestigiacomo, Silvio Berlusconi's Minster for Equal Opportunities - that the Church's intervention was decisive. One would have thought that such a high profile campaign would have brought more people out to vote, but other factors - the fact that a nervous government scheduled the referendum on the first weekend of the school summer holidays, the fact that a four part question may have been overly complicated, and the fact that Italians would seem to be suffering from referendum fatigue - may well have played as much of a part. Still, it would not be the first time that the Church has demonstrated its willingness and capacity to act as a pressure group (see Chapter 8): the Vatican's role in the post-war success of Europe's Christian Democratic parties, and continued restrictions on Sunday opening are obvious examples.

In the end, turnout in Italy's referendum was only 26% - meaning any attempt to overturn the law had failed miserably. As in France and the Netherlands Update 5, the yes campaign was disconsolate, fearing an attempt will be made to roll back Italy's abortion laws and believing, in the words of politician (and former European Commissioner) Emma Bonino, that the June vote (or non vote) claimed 'three victims: the secularism of the state, political authority and the institution of the referendum.' With this in mind, while it may well prove possible for the populist Lega Nord to amass the signatures necessary to hold a vote on restoring the lira and replacing the euro, it may be much harder for the party to actually make that vote matter.

There does not, however, seem to be much danger of this happening in Switzerland, despite its even more frequent use of direct democracy. June 2005 also saw yet another referendum in the landlocked country of seven million people, this time on a challenge to governmental and parliamentary approval of Switzerland joining the Schengen area, meaning that those travelling to and from member countries (13 EU members plus Norway and Iceland) do not have to show passports, while their governments share information relating to cross-border crime, as well as migration and asylum (see Chapter 10). Turnout among the country's 4.8 million registered voters was 56% and the decision to join was upheld by 55% to 45%. The fact that the vote also means Switzerland will join the Dublin accords, allowing it to automatically turn back asylum claimants travelling from EU countries helped offset the scare tactics by the right-wing populist party the SVP. Notwithstanding its being part of the government, the SVP joined the 'Association for a Neutral and Independent Switzerland' in a campaign which included the erection of a large-scale Trojan horse in order to reinforce the message that the country would be flooded by foreigners. This was an echo of the non and nee campaigns in France and the Netherlands, but not perhaps a surprising one, given existing anxieties about immigration in a country with over three quarters of a million 'guest workers' already.

The referendum helped strengthen Switzerland's move toward greater economic integration with the EU, the destination for almost two-thirds of its exports. Membership (rejected by 77% in a referendum in 2001) is, however, still off the agenda. On the other hand, it is only the first part of a two round fight. On 25 September 2005, the Swiss will be going to the polls again, this time to approve the extension (in 2011) to the ten new member states of the EU of the right to work freely in Switzerland which from 2007 will be enjoyed by citizens of the pre-accession EU-15.

Given the climate of fear about foreign workers whipped up in the first referendum, getting a positive result in the second may prove very difficult, even with (as in the first) the overwhelming support of business, politicians and the media. A negative vote will leave the EU to wonder, firstly, whether it should allow the benefits of closer association to a country that wants to pick and mix between the conditions set and, secondly, whether it is worth undertaking negotiations in the future, only to find that all the hard work involved comes to nothing when Swiss voters are effectively given the chance to veto any agreement.

Swiss voters are not always risk-averse or conservative, however. On the same day as the referendum on Schengen and Dublin, just under sixty per cent of those voting also supported a motion in simultaneous referendum that allows same-sex couples to legally declare their relationships as 'registered partnerships', thereby entitling them to the same rights as married people on matters like pensions and taxation. On the other hand (and bringing us back to where we started in Italy) the legislation approved in the referendum explicitly prohibits same-sex couples not only from adopting children, but also from accessing fertility treatment - an opportunity which, as if to illustrate the continent's social and cultural diversity - is offered to women in many other European countries.

In the event, the Swiss turned out to be far more accommodating than some had feared: the referendum produced a clear win for those arguing that citizens of the EU’s newest member states should be accorded the right to work from 2011.

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