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The recent feud between Italy and newly installed leadership of the European Commission over Italy's 2015 budget proposal has at least a little political theater in it, experts say.
To be sure, the series of verbal clashes are also substantive: Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi bristled at the European Commission's criticisms of Italy's proposal, which reduced an 18-billion-euro (22.5 billion U.S. dollars) tax cut package aimed at sparking growth.
At the center of the issue is a clash between several southern European states, including Italy, on one side calling for greater flexibility in European austerity rules, and those countries on the other side calling for strict austerity.
It is the verbal exchange tossed back and forth between Renzi and European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker that called attention to it.
Renzi, speaking to reporters recently, called the European Commission a "gang of bureaucrats" and said Italy "deserves respect for its past, (and) for its future."
Juncker, a former prime minister of Luxembourg, speaking to reporters in Brussels, replied he is "not the leader of some kind of gang of bureaucrats" and that as president of the European Commission he "wants prime ministers to respect these European institutions."
Juncker, in a recent press briefing, even suggested Italy might have had a more difficult time if its fate regarding the 2015 budget had been left up to bureaucrats. "Italy's budget could have been treated much differently," he cautioned.
Gian Franco Gallo, a political affairs analyst with ABS Securities, said in an interview, "There are real issues at play here and both sides want to gain an upper hand."
"But at the same time, both have a sub-text: Juncker is showing the important role of the European Commission compared to individual states, and Renzi is proving he is not blindly pro-European and that he can stand up against the European Commission when needed. Both sides are testing the other at this point," said the analyst.
According to Arlo Poletti, an expert in international politics with LUISS University in Rome, Renzi may be playing at least in part to anti-European elements in the country.
"There are the followers of Beppe Grillo, and the Northern League," Poletti told Xinhua, referring to Grillo, a former comedian turned anti-government activist and the separatist political movement based in the richer northern part of the country. "They are Euro-skeptics critical of the prime minister's European agenda."
According to Antonio Villafranca, from the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, both leaders are focused on solving certain basic problems, including how to spark economic growth and keep debt levels under control.
"The goals are obviously similar," Villafranca said in an interview. "When it comes to Renzi, he wants to be seen as doing what needs to be done (to encourage growth without adding too much debt) and the European Commission is challenging him."
