Ban on Berlusconi lifted

Nervy Europe watches as joint govt deal likely

ROME, May 12, (Agencies): An Italian tribunal has lifted a ban on veteran centreright leader Silvio Berlusconi from holding public office, meaning he could run to be prime minister in the next national election.

However, the decision might have come just too late for the 81-year-old four-times premier, who only three days ago gave his blessing to his political ally the League to form a government without him in the wake of a disappointing election result.

Berlusconi was convicted of tax fraud in 2013, triggering his expulsion from the upper house of parliament and a bar on holding any elected position for six years.

However, in a decision made public on Saturday, a court in the northern city of Milan which oversees the application of sentences ruled that the bar could be lifted a year early because of “good conduct”.

“Finally five years of injustice has come to end,” Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party said in a statement. “Berlusconi can once again be a candidate.”

Berlusconi campaigned actively ahead of a March 4 national election even though he was not a candidate. But Forza Italia did not perform as well as he had expected, slipping behind the League to lose its top spot in the centre-right bloc.

Berlusconi blamed the poor showing on the fact that voters knew he could not be prime minister.

The centre-right emerged as the single largest force at the March vote, while the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement emerged as the biggest individual party.

Neither side won enough seats to govern alone and efforts to put together a coalition were complicated by 5-Star’s refusal to work with Forza Italia, saying Berlusconi symbolised political corruption in Italy.

After more than nine weeks of stalemate, and with fresh elections looking increasingly likely, Berlusconi on Wednesday finally gave his blessing to the League to seek a coalition deal without Forza Italia.

Negotiations

Negotiations between the League and 5-Star are continuing, with President Sergio Mattarella giving them until Monday to strike an accord. Both parties say that if they fail to agree terms, the only solution would be a revote, perhaps in July.

A political source, who declined to be named, said the fact Berlusconi was now free to run might make him less amenable to a League/5-Star government and could work to make life difficult for it in parliament, should it take office.

The billionaire media tycoon was written off after he quit as prime minister in 2011 amid a sex scandal involving his “bunga bunga” parties, while Italian bond yields surged to unsustainable levels at the height of the euro zone debt crisis.

However, he has fought hard to remain politically relevant.

Last year he appealed to the European Court of Human Rights to overturn the ban on holding public office. A verdict is still awaited but the Milan ruling makes it irrelevant.

Meanwhile, Italian anti-establishment and far-right leaders are inching closer to

Catalan separatists to elect prez:

Separatist parties in Catalonia aim to elect one of their own as regional president by early next week, ending five months of political deadlock amid the restive region’s attempts to secede from Spain. a deal over a joint government under the watchful eye of Europe as they meet on Saturday to hash out a deal that could be announced as soon as Sunday.

Matteo Salvini, leader of the nationalist, strongly eurosceptic League, and head of Five Star Movement (M5S) Luigi Di Maio are set to meet in Milan on Saturday to continue talks over a “German-style” government contract, which both hope to sign “as soon as possible.”

They may report on the progress of their talks as early as Sunday to President Sergio Mattarella, who could then nominate the new prime minister on Monday. That person is unlikely to be either Salvini or Di Maio.

On Friday Italian media reported Di Maio’s political advisor Vincenzo Spadafora speaking of a tight team with “less than 20 ministers”, but no names have been revealed.

Composition

The composition of the government team will be influenced by the number of seats held by M5S, which is more than Salvini now that he will take part in this proposed government separately from the right-wing coalition that won 37 percent of the vote on March 4.

On its own, the League picked up 17 percent, while the M5S is by far Italy’s largest single party after conquering nearly 33 percent of the electorate.

“We are making significant progress on the government programme by finding broad points of convergence on issues that are important to Italians,” said Di Maio after meeting Salvini in the lower house Chamber of Deputies on Friday.

Italian media report that both parties agree on rolling back increases to the age of retirement, while the M5S is willing to follow the League’s hardline anti-immigration policies.

Salvini and Di Maio are also willing to make compromises over their flagship policies — the League’s drastic drop in taxes and the M5S’s universal basic income — which look tricky to reconcile in the eurozone’s second most indebted country.

Spadafora emphasised the M5S’s desire for Italy “to stay in the euro and in Europe,” despite wanting to rediscuss “some treaties.”

The EU is one of Salvini’s favourite targets, with the 45-year-old making alliances across Europe with other anti-union figures like Viktor Orban and Marine Le Pen.

Salvini’s possible entry into government has attracted attention in Brussels, and Mattarella, who alone has the power to appoint the executive, warned the parties against nationalism.

“To think that we can get by alone is a pure illusion or, worse, a deliberate deception aimed to sway public opinion,” Mattarella said at State of the Union conference in Florence on Thursday.

At the conference on Friday was EU parliament head Antonio Tajani, who would have been Silvio Berlusconi’s prime ministerial nominee had right-wing coalition partner Salvini’s League not won more votes than the 81-year-old media mogul’s Forza Italia party.

The Catalan parliament said Friday that separatist lawmaker Quim Torra is set to be put forward for election in a vote Saturday. But the pro-independence parties don’t have enough votes to elect him in the first round, so a second round will be held Monday when Torra can be elected by their slender majority. Unionist parties oppose Torra.

The Spanish government, which has repeatedly moved to block the wealthy region’s attempts to break away, warned it won’t budge from its firm line on Catalonia.

“The candidate who takes office in Catalonia must abide by the law and be the president of all Catalans, not just some of them,” government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo told reporters after a weekly Cabinet meeting Friday.

The government took control of Catalonia, stripping it of its administrative autonomy, amid a secession push following an unauthorized independence referendum in the region in October. (AP)