Italy’s Leader Wins Confidence Vote After Denouncing Populist Rhetoric

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/world/europe/italy-conte-confidence-vote.html

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ROME — Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy and his coalition government of unlikely allies surmounted their first hurdle on Monday, easily winning the confidence of lawmakers in Parliament.

The coalition, formed of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the center-left Democratic Party, as well as a small left-wing party, won with 343 votes in Mr. Conte’s favor, 263 votes against and three abstentions, after a long day of debate among lawmakers in the lower house. He is expected to face a similar vote in the Senate, where he has a slimmer majority, on Tuesday morning.

Hundreds of protesters, in a rally organized by the right-wing parties Brothers of Italy and the League, gathered outside Parliament on Monday over what they consider a government with no democratic legitimacy. The League, an anti-immigrant party, had governed with Mr. Conte until a month ago, when its leader, Matteo Salvini, pulled his support in hopes of forcing an election. His strategy backfired when Mr. Conte managed to form the new coalition.

Mr. Conte, in an hourlong speech urging fellow lawmakers to back his coalition, vowed to distance the government from the firebrand rhetoric that has been characteristic of Mr. Salvini, though he avoided mentioning the League leader directly.

“We want to leave the noise of explosive, belligerent statements behind,” Mr. Conte said.

The prime minister devoted a significant part of his speech to underscoring a commitment to the European Union, whose relationship with Italy had become strained in the past 14 months.

Mr. Conte, previously a little-known law professor with no political base or government experience, became prime minister as a consensus candidate after elections in 2018. He then presided over the uneasy coalition struck by Five Star and the League, two populist parties that disagreed on many issues but shared a common mistrust of European institutions.

Although Five Star has long opposed some of the ramifications of European Union membership, the party’s time in power with Mr. Conte softened the party’s line. Last week, its political leader, Luigi Di Maio, was named foreign minister.

“I am strongly convinced that Italy’s national interests lie inside, not outside, the European Union,” Mr. Conte said on Monday. He also took credit for twice averting an infringement procedure against Italy through his negotiations.

Even so, Mr. Conte called for a change in European Union rules that limit member states’ budget deficits to 3 percent of economic output, a requirement that Italy is struggling to meet. And he asked for help from Europe in dealing with immigration, saying that “solidarity has been announced, but this announcement hasn’t turned to facts yet.”

The new coalition’s most pressing challenge is likely to be the drafting of a new budget, which must be approved by the end of the year and must not infringe the European Union’s fiscal rules. Five Star and the Democratic Party differ in their approaches to public spending and economic growth, which remains sluggish in Italy.

Mr. Conte assured Parliament on Monday that a “fruitful debate” had begun and that talks would result in the careful allocation of limited resources, as well as a spending review.

Acknowledging the differences between the coalition partners, Mr. Conte urged them to “put old rancor and self-interest aside.”

In a further change from the previous government, Mr. Conte praised globalization as an opportunity and added, “We are even more convinced that protectionism is never the appropriate answer.” He also stressed Italy’s “essential relationship with the United States” and underlined Rome’s commitment to NATO.

Mr. Salvini, the League leader, built a powerful political base by pushing anti-immigrant policies, and his party won 34 percent of the Italian vote in European elections last May. But Mr. Conte addressed immigration only briefly on Monday, hinting only that a contentious “security law” introduced by the former government could be toned down.

That law cracks down on nongovernmental rescue ships, among other measures aimed at deterring migrants fleeing violence or poverty in places like Africa and the Middle East.

Mr. Conte also vaguely held out the possibility of overhauling Italy’s citizenship laws, “eliminating discriminatory elements.” Currently, children born in Italy to foreign parents can apply for citizenship only after turning 18. The Democratic Party has lobbied to grant citizenship at birth.

Mr. Conte’s speech was repeatedly interrupted by lawmakers from the League, who chanted, “Elections! Elections! Elections!”

That cry was echoed outside, in a square adjacent to the lower house, where opponents of the new government waved Italian flags.

“Italy shouldn’t be governed by Merkel and Macron,” said Martina Mantovani, referring to the leaders of Germany and France. She said she had traveled from Milan to express her anger at a coalition that she considers subservient to the European Union. “I want a government that defends Italians,” she said.

Luciano Paduano, from Termoli, on the eastern coast of Italy, attended the rally with a busload of other Brothers of Italy supporters. “We want the right to elect the government ourselves — the people are sovereign,” he said, expressing anger that snap elections had not been called. “When the Five Star was in opposition, they were against horse trading. Now they’ve done the same thing,” he added.

Some in the crowd offered stiff-armed fascist salutes as Giorgia Meloni, the leader of Brothers of Italy, addressed the protesters. Addressing the majority lawmakers inside Parliament, she called out, “Get out of the palazzo, and have the courage to face popular consensus,” to loud cheers. “The government born today is against the will of the Italian people,” she added.

In Parliament, Mr. Conte quoted a former Italian president, Giuseppe Saragat, who had warned that democracy was not just about majority rule, but also about mutual respect. In the absence of such respect, Mr. Conte said, democracy can become “only the mask of a new tyranny.”