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Euroskeptic coalition in Italy agrees on new government bid Italy’s Euroskeptic coalition forms new cabinet after president’s ‘undemocratic’ veto
(about 3 hours later)
Italian anti-establishment parties that won the latest general election have reached an agreement for a new bid to form a coalition government, averting the possibility of new snap election. Giuseppe Conte will head a new Lega-Five Star Movement government after all, as the two parties proposed a new finance minister instead of EU critic Paolo Savona, whose candidacy was rejected by the president.
Former International Monetary Fund official Carlo Cottarelli, who was appointed by President Mattarella as interim head of the government until a potential to new election, formally gave up his mandate after the success of the talks was announced. “All the conditions have been fulfilled for a political Five Star and Lega government,” said a joint statement from the two anti-establishment parties, which gathered more than half of the votes in the March election but had been unable to form a government for nearly three months.
“All the conditions have been fulfilled for a political, 5-Star and League government,” 5-Star chief Luigi Di Maio and League leader Matteo Salvini said in a joint statement on Thursday. The two parties, which lie on the opposite sides of the left-right political spectrum, negotiated the revival of their coalition for several hours. With Conte to be sworn in on Friday, the new finance minister will be Giovanni Tria, a politically unaffiliated 69-year-old academic, who is regarded as anti-EU, but more flexible than Savona. The latter, who has called Italy’s entry into the euro zone a “historic mistake,” will become the European Affairs minister, with a remit to negotiate on Rome’s behalf in Brussels.
The new bid for the cabinet keeps Giuseppe Conte, a law professor close to 5-Star, as the proposed prime minister. Paolo Savona, whose candidacy for the position of the economy minister was vetoed by President Sergio Mattarella earlier this week, is no longer proposed for the job. He was replaced in the proposed government by Giovanni Tria, an economy professor at Rome’s Tor Vergata University, according to Reuters. Tria is a Eurosceptic, but he didn’t argue for a possible withdrawal of Italy from the euro zone, which was the reason for Savona getting blocked.
According to the parties, the League’s Salvini will lead interior ministry in the would-be cabinet while Di Maio of the 5-Star will take portfolios of labor and industry under a newly-created ministerial position. In line with the earlier proposal, Lega leader Matteo Salvini will become the interior minister, concentrating on his party’s pledges to cut illegal migration, while Five Star Movement leader Luigi di Maio will have a chance to tackle bureaucracy, cut taxes, and increase employment as minister of labor and industry.
Enzo Moavero, a former EU affairs minister under Prime Minister Mario Monti, is slated ty become foreign minister in the Conte government. Savona was proposed for the consolation prize, the position of EU affairs minister. The two parties had threatened to call a new election after President Sergio Mattarella overruled their choice of Savona late last week, suggesting that his radical stance could alienate the markets and threaten the country’s economic welfare.
“Maybe finally we have made it, after so many obstacles, attacks, threats and lies,” Salvini said on Facebook shortly after the deal was announced. The decision to ignore the coalition’s popular mandate from a man whose role is predominantly as a ceremonial constitutional safety mechanism was criticized as anti-democratic, particularly when Mattarella later put forward a “technocratic cabinet” as a replacement.
The stand-off turned international when EU budget chief Gunther Oettinger said that it was “not acceptable” for Italians to vote for anti-euro populists, adding that “the markets will teach them how to vote.” The remark produced outrage in Italy. Even top EU officials including Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk stepped in, urging Europe to “respect” Italy’s democratic choice.
Juncker, the European commission president, could not altogether resist pouring oil onto the fire, saying on Thursday that Italians cannot pin their long-term economic stagnation on Brussels, urging them to engage in “more work and less corruption.”
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