Welcome to In Conversation, the regular podcast of InCompass. Go to Encompasshypheus.

For free access to all our podcasts to date. This is Paul Adamson and I'm in conversation with Enrico Letta.

Enrico Letta is a former Prime Minister of Italy,

Presidente del Consigno, and is now dean of the Paris School of International Affairs at Cianz Po in Paris.

Welcome to the podcast, Enrico.

Thank you. Thank you for the invitation.

My pleasure. I'd like this podcast to focus on a number of things, but starting with the state of public opinion in Italy when it comes to the European Union.

As you know, Much better than I do, Italy has a reputation being one of the most, if not the most, Europhile member states in the European Union.

But is that still the case? Can we still take Italian almost unconditional

support for the European Union for granted?

No, no. It was the case in the past, but the situation changed radically in the last 10 years.

And I think because of two crises, first the financial crisis, eight, 12, that was the first big problem for the Italian public opinion

to recognize the European Union as a true friend, a friend of reasons of solidarity and need to help.

The second crisis was, and maybe it was the most important one for this raising Euroscepticism

it was the refugee welcome crisis that was another reason another moment where

the Italians started to think that Europeans were not so pushing solidarity and

then this third crisis and at the very beginning the reaction

was very negative. So I am more optimistic today because the reaction to the big

change in the European response in the last weeks is considered as positive in Italy, it's largely positive,

but the beginning of the crisis and the two previous crisis created a completely different situation.

Okay, well I promise we'll come on to the COVID-19 crisis and the European response in a moment.

Before we do that, so we talked about public opinion on Europe, Enrico.

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