Italy’s coalition government gets go-ahead
Populist parties back down over Eurosceptic economy minister and agree on law professor to be new PM
ITALY’S populist parties were finally given the green light to form a coalition government, after they backed down over their initial selection of a deeply Eurosceptic economy minister.
After days of intensive negotiations and pressure from the markets, the anti-immigrant, hard-right League party and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement last night agreed to a compromise.
Both parties had come close to forming a government at the weekend, only for their efforts to be torpedoed by President Sergio Mattarella, who refused to approve their choice of Paolo Savona as economy minister.
Mr Savona, 81, has called Italy’s adoption of the euro a “historic error”, describing it as “a German cage” and calling for a “plan B” that would allow the country to exit the eurozone.
“An accord has been reached for a Five Star-league government with Giuseppe Conte as prime minister,” the parties said in a joint note last night, after dropping their insistence on Mr Savona’s position. “Maybe finally we have made it, after so many obstacles, attacks, threats and lies,” Matteo Salvini, the head of The League, wrote on Facebook.
Mr Conte, a university law professor with no political experience who was plucked from obscurity by the two parties to be prime minster, was summoned to the presidential palace in Rome, where he was given a mandate for the second time to form a government, expected to be sworn in today.
Mr Savona was given the consolation prize of European affairs minister. The economy portfolio went to Giovanni Tria, a little-known economics professor. Professor Tria has been critical of the EU’S economic governance, but unlike Mr Savona he has not advocated a plan to prepare for Italy’s possible exit from the currency bloc.
Mr Salvini became interior minister – enabling him to start implementing his campaign pledge to expel half a million unauthorised migrants from Italy.
He has called for repatriations to be dramatically stepped up. A few hours before the agreement was announced, he set the possible tone of his ministry by tweeting a short video of a man whom he claimed was a migrant plucking a pigeon on the side of a road.
“Final hours of work to form a government, we’re putting everything into it. Meanwhile the news takes us back to harsh reality, with an immigrant plucking the feathers of pigeons in broad daylight and in the middle of the street... Go home!”
Luigi Di Maio, the Five Star leader, was made minister for economic development, a role in which he would push one of the party’s key campaign promises – to introduce a basic monthly minimum wage.
The 88 days that it took to come to an agreement was described as “a Monty Python crisis” by one Italian newspaper. “Only the celebrated English group of comedians could have come up with a saga like this,” La Stampa wrote yesterday.
The two parties laid out extravagant spending promises during the election campaign, with The League pledging to introduce flat tax rates of 15 per cent and 20 per cent and Five Star attracting support with its plan to guarantee a minimum monthly wage of €780 (£686).
The new government is likely to clash frequently with the EU, having already struck a deeply adversarial tone with Brussels apparatchiks.
Jean-claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, said yesterday: “Italians have to take care of the poor regions of Italy. That means more work, less corruption, seriousness. “We will help them as we always did. But don’t play this game of loading with responsibility the EU.”