Economist Draghi takes reins in Italy
ROME — Mario Draghi, the man largely credited with saving the euro currency, took the helm as Italy’s premier Saturday after assembling a government of economic experts and other technocrats along with career politicians from across the spectrum to guide the pandemic-devastated nation toward recovery.
Draghi and his 23 Cabinet ministers took their oaths of office at the Quirinal presidential palace. Italian President Sergio Mattarella had tasked the former European Central Bank president with trying to form a government up to managing the health, economic and social crises of the coronavirus pandemic.
All participants in the ceremony were masked, and a palace aide provided each minister with a fresh pen to sign an oath. Draghi made no public comments during the first hours of his premiership.
The current head of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, tweeted her congratulations. “I wish him all the best as he takes on the task ahead, leading the government in the best interests of all Italian citizens,” she said.
Also tweeting good wishes was the European Union’s top executive, Ursula von der Leyen, who called Draghi’s experience “an exceptional asset for Italy & Europe.” She said she was looking forward to working with Draghi “for our common recovery.”
Draghi, 73, an economist who also previously led Italy’s central bank, replaced Premier Giuseppe Conte, whose government collapsed after a small party yanked support over the handling of the pandemic. Broad political backing for the new Cabinet will be crucial in the Italian Parliament, where Draghi this week must win mandatory confidence votes.
With lockdowns pummeling Italy’s long-stagnant economy, he chose for his economy minister a nonpolitical appointee, Daniele Franco, an expert in public finances who has served in Italian central bank posts.
Eager to have some role in deciding how Italy will spend some $250 billion in European Union recovery funds, politicians from parties that have spent years demonizing each other set aside differences and agreed to join a Draghi government.
The prospect of funneling EU money into projects to improve citizens’ lives has transformed the euroskepticism of Matteo Salvini, the right-wing League leader, into a publicly enthusiastic pro-Europe proponent of a Draghi government.
Salvini didn’t get a ministry himself, but three League stalwarts did, including longtime aide and lawmaker Giancarlo Giorgetti, who was put in charge of the economic development ministry.
With tourism accounting for some 13% of Italy’s gross domestic product, the pandemic obliterated a significant chunk of the economy. The new government will have a tourism minister from the previous culture ministry.
A League senator was given the new tourism post. Keeping the reins of the culture ministry is Dario Franceschini, a high-profile Democrat who revitalized Italy’s museums to attract many more visitors.
The EU funds are contingent on projects aimed at reforming Italy’s bureaucratic institutions, creating jobs, especially for young people, and transforming the nation digitally and environmentally.
Italy’s slow and complex justice system is often blamed for discouraging business investment. The new justice minister is Marta Cartabia, former president of Italy’s constitutional court. How to revamp the Justice Ministry fueled feuding within Conte’s last coalition.
Italy’s health minister through the pandemic, Roberto Speranza, kept his post, the sole minister from a small left-wing party.
Ministry posts were handed out to four parties that were in Conte’s imploded coalition, including a small centrist party led by former Premier Matteo Renzi, whose defection triggered the political crisis ultimately resolved by Draghi’s arrival on the scene.
The biggest party in Parliament, the populist 5-Star Movement, has the most political posts in Draghi’s Cabinet at four.
Born as an anti-establishment movement, the 5-Star Movement was already splintering after being the lead party in back-to-back Conte governments since 2018 — one right-leaning and the other left-leaning.
Clinching populists’ support for Draghi was the former central banker’s creation of a ministry of ecological transition. That post will be headed by a physicist and technology champion, Roberto Cingolani.
The center-right Forza Italia party, led by former Premier Silvio Berlusconi, received three ministry posts.