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POLITICS

Italy takes ‘big steps’ towards forming a government

Italian anti-establishment and far-right parties said they took "big steps" on Thursday towards forming a populist government to end months of deadlock.

Published: 10 May 2018 13:01 CEST
Updated: 11 May 2018 08:39 CEST
Italy takes 'big steps' towards forming a government
President Sergio Mattarella, who is leading talks on Italy new government. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

According to the Italian press, the Five Star Movement (M5S) and the anti-immigrantion League party have asked President Sergio Mattarella to give them until Monday to resolve the stalemate, failing which fresh elections could be held. 

M5S leader Luigi Di Maio and League chief Matteo Salvini met at the lower house Chamber of Deputies on Thursday morning.

“Big steps were made towards the composition of the executive and the nomination of the prime minister,” the pair said in a statement after the morning round of talks.

A question mark still hangs over who would clinch the top spot in a M5S-League coalition. Both Di Maio and Salvini have said they are willing to step back and let someone else take the premiership but, according to the press, neither has completely given up on their ambitions to lead the country.

Later on Thursday Salvini took to Twitter saying, “We are working for you,” with a photo of him posing next to a giant bulldozer.

A beaming Di Maio said, “I cannot hide my joy that we can finally begin to take care of Italy's problems,” in a Facebook video.

Meanwhile experts began to pour over the parties' key proposals in order to forge a government contract. Talks over policies will likely be complicated given the serious differences between the two parties – in particular regarding the M5S's flagship universal basic income policy, which the League has said will create a culture of dependency.

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Luigi Di Maio (L) and Matteo Salvini. Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP

A breakthrough in negotiations for the two parties came on Wednesday when Salvini's right-wing coalition partner, former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, gave the green light for the pair to form a government without his Forza Italia party.

Salvini and Berlusconi's coalition won the most seats in the March election, but the 81-year-old ex-premier has been a sticking point in the ensuing horse-trading. Di Maio insisted Salvini dump the scandal-dogged media mogul Berlusconi and form a government with the M5S and without Forza Italia.

Late on Wednesday Berlusconi announced he would not block a possible coalition deal between the two parties. Between them they would have enough seats in both houses of parliament to form a majority.

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After three failed rounds of consultations hosted by President Sergio Mattarella, Italy had looked to be heading either for a caretaker government, chosen by the president, or fresh elections.

Both the League and Five Star are staunchly opposed to a caretaker government and without their support the initiative would not pass a confidence vote in parliament.

The alternative could be fresh elections as early as July.

“We still have to work on the programme, on dates, on the team and the things that need doing,” Salvini said. “Either we reach a conclusion, or we return to the voters”. 

READ ALSO: The Local's introductory guide to Italian politics

EUROPEAN UNION

Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Sunday she would stand in upcoming European Parliament elections, a move apparently calculated to boost her far-right party, although she would be forced to resign immediately.

Published: 28 April 2024 15:54 CEST
Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, which has neo-Fascist roots, came top in Italy’s 2022 general election with 26 percent of the vote.

It is polling at similar levels ahead of the European elections on from June 6-9.

With Meloni heading the list of candidates, Brothers of Italy could exploit its national popularity at the EU level, even though EU rules require that any winner already holding a ministerial position must immediately resign from the EU assembly.

“We want to do in Europe exactly what we did in Italy on September 25, 2022 — creating a majority that brings together the forces of the right to finally send the left into opposition, even in Europe!” Meloni told a party event in the Adriatic city of Pescara.

In a fiery, sweeping speech touching briefly on issues from surrogacy and Ramadan to artificial meat, Meloni extolled her coalition government’s one-and-a-half years in power and what she said were its efforts to combat illegal immigration, protect families and defend Christian values.

After speaking for over an hour in the combative tone reminiscent of her election campaigns, Meloni said she had decided to run for a seat in the European Parliament.

READ ALSO: How much control does Giorgia Meloni’s government have over Italian media?

“I’m doing it because I want to ask Italians if they are satisfied with the work we are doing in Italy and that we’re doing in Europe,” she said, suggesting that only she could unite Europe’s conservatives.

“I’m doing it because in addition to being president of Brothers of Italy I’m also the leader of the European conservatives who want to have a decisive role in changing the course of European politics,” she added.

In her rise to power, Meloni, as head of Brothers of Italy, often railed against the European Union, “LGBT lobbies” and what she has called the politically correct rhetoric of the left, appealing to many voters with her straight talk.

“I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian” she famously declared at a 2019 rally.

She used a similar tone Sunday, instructing voters to simply write “Giorgia” on their ballots.

“I have always been, I am, and will always be proud of being an ordinary person,” she shouted.

EU rules require that “newly elected MEP credentials undergo verification to ascertain that they do not hold an office that is incompatible with being a Member of the European Parliament,” including being a government minister.

READ ALSO: Why is Italy’s government being accused of helping tax dodgers?

The strategy has been used before, most recently in Italy in 2019 by Meloni’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, who leads the far-right Lega party.

The EU Parliament elections do not provide for alliances within Italy’s parties, meaning that Brothers of Italy will be in direct competition with its coalition partners Lega and Forza Italia, founded by Silvio Berlusconi.

The Lega and Forza Italia are polling at about seven percent and eight percent, respectively.

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