Euroskeptics in Italy cheer populist leaders
New coalition government has promised to expel hundreds of thousands of migrants
ROME— Italy’s president swore in western Europe’s first populist government Friday, featuring a mix of anti-establishment and right-wing ministers who have promised an “Italy first” agenda that has alarmed Europe’s political establishment.
The continent’s euroskeptic politicians cheered the birth of the new government coalition of the Five Star Movement and the right-wing League party, which has pledged to expel hundreds of thousands of migrants from Italy.
President Sergio Mattarella, who negotiated through three months of political deadlock to finally find a workable government, presided over the ceremony in the gilded Quirinale Palace.
Eighteen ministers — five of them women — took the oath of office, pledging to observe Italy’s constitution and work exclusively in the interests of the nation.
The ministers feature a mix of Five Star and League loyalists and a political neophyte in the form of Premier Giuseppe Conte, who was still teaching his law classes at the University of Florence up until Thursday.
The key economy ministry went to a mainstream economist, Giovanni Tria, who is close to the centre-right Forza Italia party of ex-premier Silvio Berlus- coni. Mattarella had vetoed the Five Star-League’s first proposed candidate for the post because of his euroskeptic views. The ceremony Friday afternoon capped a roller-coaster week of political and financial turmoil that saw stock markets around the world plunge and Italy’s borrowing rates soar on the threat of a new election in Europe’s third-largest economy.
It also came on the eve of the nation’s Republic Day holiday, the day in 1946 when Italy abolished the monarchy and gave birth to the First Republic.
The improbably fast rise of the grassroots Five Star Movement and its alliance with the right-wing, anti-immigrant League has been dubbed the birth of Italy’s Third Republic, after Italy’s political order was largely drubbed in the March 4 national vote.
“Look at this spectacle!” marvelled Five Star leader Luigi Di Maio moments before the swearing-in ceremony. In a Facebook post featuring a photo of the Five Star ministers, he said: “There are a lot of us, and we’re ready to launch a government of change to improve the quality of life for all Italians.”
Conte’s deputy premiers are his two more seasoned political masters: Di Maio and Matteo Salvini, head of the League. Di Maio, who pledged to give needy Italians a basic income, takes over as economic development minister, while Salvini heads the interior ministry, the key position to enforce his pledge to expel hundreds of thousands of migrants.