Italy praises Merkel's victory in German elections

The smiling face of Angela Merkel dominated the front pages of the main Italian newspapers on Monday, the day after the German general elections.

The landslide victory of the German Chancellor - who won her third mandate on Sunday with 41.5 percent of votes, the best result for Conservative bloc since 1994- hit the headlines of Italy's outlets. "A historical victory", "The triumph of Angela Merkel", "Merkel wins hands down": with such remarks Italy praised the leader of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and analysed the reasons behind the strong choice expressed by German electorate. "Berlin's government will have but one master from now on: Merkel," wrote Paolo Lepri, political analyst at the newspaper Corriere della Sera.

"This vote is a strong 'yes' to her politics, to her stable guide of the country and to the way she managed the European economic crisis on the basis of the link solidarity-reforms."

Same comment from La Repubblica newspaper read: "Angela the great, queen of Europe" titled the broadsheet, whose special correspondent Bernardo Valli wrote: "She was able to increase her consensus by 9 points in 4 years, while presidents and premiers all across Europe stagger under the weigh of the economic crisis."

Italians have kept a watchful eye on German elections and a victory of Merkel was widely expected, but many were clearly surprised by the extent of it. "If Margaret Thatcher were still alive - the newspaper "La Stampa" remarked - she would be watching quite bitterly another woman, Angela Merkel, doing better than her as leader of a big European country and obscure her myth."

Italian media and analysts also highlighted the defeat of the Free Democrats - the former liberal partners of CDU, who failed to get any seats at the Bundestag - and of the euro-sceptical Alternative fur Deutschland party (AfD), which calls for withdrawal from the Euro currency and took 4.7 percent, not enough to pass the parliamentary threshold of 5 percent.

From an Italian perspective, the overwhelming victory of Merkel's CDU now leaves another open question: what repercussions of this outcome will be within the EU context. Lorenzo Bini-Smaghi, former member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, forecasted "no big discount for Italy."

"The victory of Merkel," wrote Bini-Smaghi, "is also a victory of her politics in Europe." Germany will not change much her attitude towards southern European partners and I don't think Italy will have the chance to re-negotiate the EU deficit-to-GDP limit of 3 percent, as Spain or France were able to do."

Finally, more than one commentator suggested that German elections taught Italy a hard lesson: the benefits of being politically stable.