Italy’s populists are blocked as political referee waves the red card

ITALY - The occupant of the Quirinale, the presidential palace in Rome, is meant to be above the daily cut and thrust of politics. Sergio Mattarella has been the model of restraint in his three years as President until now. Mattarella, a 75-year-old Sicilian and veteran politician, is known as a man of few words. But those he spoke Sunday night have sparked a constitutional crisis and populist outrage. He rejected a key appointment in the Cabinet of Prime Minister-designate Giuseppe Conte: that of euroskeptic Paolo Savona as finance minister. And he was blunt about the reason. “The uncertainty over our position in the euro alarmed Italian and foreign investors,” Mattarella said. The rising price of Italian debt would burn through savings and hurt companies. “Membership of the euro is a fundamental choice for the future of our country and our young people,” the President added. The man who once described his job as that of a “political referee” was brandishing the red card, and Italy entered its 84th day without a government. Conte a lawyer with no political experience - has now given up trying to form a government, which may be just as well because he was under growing pressure to explain an academic resume that appears to have been embellished. But the populist alliance of the Five Star Movement and the League that had chosen him and was on the cusp of power has reacted furiously.

Its outrage is all the greater because Mattarella’s politics are left-of-center. Luigi Di Maio, leader of Five Star and rarely short of a colorful phrase, said: “In this country, you can be a condemned criminal, convicted of tax fraud, under investigation for corruption and still be a minister. But if you criticize Europe, you can’t be economy minister.” He even suggested Mattarella could be impeached, but League leader Matteo Salvini, who once derided Mattarella as a “cattocommunista”, has for now played down that option. Five Star and the right-wing League won 33% and 17% of votes respectively in the March election, a dramatic breakthrough for insurgent parties. Mattarella’s decision to block the appointment of Savona gave the financial markets a brief respite with the yield on the Italian 10year bond easing and Milan’s stock exchange rising in early trading. But in the longer term, investors will return to themes that have long haunted them: Italy’s massive debt, an inflexible labor market and dysfunctional political system.

Plus the prospect of Five Star and the League increasing their vote and implementing an unorthodox combination of tax cuts and higher welfare spending. The doyens of the European Union are also breathing a sigh of relief after Mattarella’s intervention. External Affairs Commissioner Federica Mogherini, herself a former member of the Italian Parliament, said she had full trust in Italian institutions, “starting with the Italian President who is the guarantor of the Italian constitution.” Their anxiety is understandable. Savona had talked about Italy leaving the eurozone and League leader Salvini had complained: “Italy is not a colony, we are not slaves of the Germans, the French, the [bond] spread or finance.” (CNN)