Europe already stands accused of letting Italy down at its moment of greatest needwhen hospitals were overwhelmed and Rome asked for supplies and aid, European nations initially looked the other way, before eventually offering support. That may have already been too late, coloring Italians views of their neighbors. With the bailout package, the EU was again divided. The Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland had been wary of endorsing the plan out of a historic reluctance to send money to what they see as the profligate countries of the South. (Never mind that Italy didnt bring the virus upon itself, and that the countries in the euro zone are deeply interconnected.)

Within Italy, too, there is intense political debate about the funds. The countrys coalition government is supportive of the plan, but the right-wing opposition League party has been critical, saying the support would come with too many strings attached.

Yet beyond the political squabbles, whether in Rome or other European capitals, lies a greater challenge: To make effective use of the EU funds, Italy needs political vision, something it has singularly lacked for decades. Following the introduction of the euro in 2002, Silvio Berlusconi dominated the political landscape. The former prime ministers cult of personality and sex scandals took center stage, rivals were united only in opposition to him, and Italy lost years to mismanagement of its economy. Berlusconi left power at the height of the European debt crisis, in 2011, but the countrys economy never fully recovered.

Read: Berlusconi was Trump before Trump

The EU plan recommends that countries spend the funding on long-term investments like green technology and digital infrastructure, areas in which Italy lags. This poses difficult questions. When does the present become the future? When youve rallied to put out a fire like the coronavirus, how do you begin to rebuild? If the future isnt the same as the past, how can we live if we only exist in the present, without planning, hope, or imagination? the columnist Ezio Mauro recently wrote in La Repubblica, a center-left daily. A shrinking middle class and networks of local interest groups, Mauro continued, can easily trap weak political leadership into placating them, rather than articulating a plan to transform the country.

Italys largest political parties are more and more disconnected from the European mainstream, with none presenting a far-reaching vision of what a modern Italy could look like. The governing Five Star Movement, a contradictory collection of environmentalism and right- and left-wing policies, is the largest party in Parliament, but it trails in the polls. Its coalition partner, the center-left Democratic Party, has been treading water for years and, unlike other aging movements, such as those in France, lacks a Macron-like figure who can reinvent it. Neither is as popular as the League, led by Matteo Salvini, who has ridden a nationalist, anti-immigrant message and savvy use of social media to the top of the polls.

I used to say that Italy was a great laboratory for political ideas, the Silicon Valley of populism, and that there were lessons to learn from Italy that could spread, Giuliano da Empoli, an erstwhile adviser to former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, told me. Now its no longer a laboratory; its a loose cannon.

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