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Here is Italy’s new cabinet in full

Italy swore in a new government on Friday, after months of uncertainty. Here's who's in it and what they'll be doing.

Published: 1 June 2018 18:09 CEST
Updated: 1 June 2018 19:56 CEST
Here is Italy's new cabinet in full
Italy's new cabinet at the presidential palace on Friday. Photo: Italian Presidency Press Office/AFP

Prime Minister: Giuseppe Conte (unelected)

Conte, 53, was plucked from relative obscurity by the Five Star Movement (M5S), first during the election campaign as the potential figurehead of its drive to reform Italy's bureaucracy, then months later as its nominee for prime minister once both parties agreed not to install their own leaders as PM. The law professor has a long (and possibly inflated) CV in academia and legal affairs, but zero experience in public office. The leaders of the M5S and League will serve as his joint deputies.

READ MORE: Who is Giuseppe Conte, the political novice made Italy's populist PM?


Photo: Vincenzo Pinto/AFP

Minister of Economic Development, Labour and Social Policy, Deputy Prime Minister: Luigi Di Maio (M5S)

Just 31 years old, M5S leader Di Maio at one point looked to be Italy's youngest ever prime minister after his party won the largest standalone share of the vote in March's election. Yet his coalition partner, the League, wouldn't stand for it and instead Di Maio finds himself with the economic development portfolio – crucial to the Five Star Movement's proposals to reverse austerity measures and boost benefits. 

READ MORE: Luigi Di Maio, the face of Italian populism


Photo: Piero Cruciatti/AFP

Interior Minister, Deputy Prime Minister: Matteo Salvini (League)

The League's party leader, Salvini renounced his ambition – for now – to be Italy's prime minister and settles for the Interior Ministry. The role puts him in charge of Italy's immigration policies, which he has long denounced as too liberal. Salvini, 45, has promised to crack down on illegal immigration to Italy and drastically speed up the process of deporting those who have already arrived.

READ MORE: Matteo Salvini, Italy's rebranded nationalist


Photo: Miguel Medina/AFP

Finance Minister: Giovanni Tria (unelected)

Tria, 69, is the coalition's compromise solution after President Sergio Mattarella vetoed their first choice to fill the crucial position, Paolo Savona (now moved to European Affairs). Unlike him, Tria believes that Italy is better off remaining in the euro, though has called for reforms to the single currency. The political economist favours the League's heavily simplified tax rate, but has expressed concern about the M5S's plans to introduce a form of universal basic income.

READ ALSO: Giovanni Tria, Italy's pro-euro finance minister

Foreign Minister: Enzo Moavero Milanese (unelected)

The coalition's top diplomat is a Brussels insider: Milanese, 63, twice served as Italy's minister of European Affairs and before that spent two decades in the European Commission. A professor of law, he is considered a deft and courteous negotiator.


Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP 

Justice Minister: Alfonso Bonafede (M5S)

Bonafede, 41, has been nicknamed the “Mr Wolf” of the Five Star Movement: a close personal ally of Di Maio, he is considered the M5S leader's most faithful fixer and guard dog. Born in Sicily but representing Tuscany in parliament, he has a background in jurisprudence.

European Affairs Minister: Paolo Savona (unelected)

Savona, 81, picks up the Europe portfolio after being switched from Finance. The economist and one-time trade minister is a vigorous critic of the European Union and its single currency but claims he's not Europhobic; rather, he says, he wants to oppose “the elites who run it” rather than a united Europe itself. 

READ MORE: Paolo Savona, the eurosceptic to oversee Italy's relations with Europe


Photo: Fabio Frustaci/AFP

Defence Minister: Elisabetta Trenta (unelected)

Trenta, 50, is Italy's second ever female defence minister. A political scientist specialized in international cooperation, intelligence and security, she was selected for the post by the M5S even before the election. Trenta has previously advised the Italian government on Iraq and Libya, as well as serving as a reserve in the Italian army, and has said that she wants to modernize Italy's armed forces and better equip them to deal with changing threats.

Health Minister: Giulia Grillo (M5S)

With a degree in medicine, Grillo, 43, will go some way to reassure those who feared that the M5S-League government would indulge anti-vaccination activists – but not entirely. While she is unequivocally in favour of vaccines, she has said that Italy's current law making shots compulsory for schoolchildren risks doing more harm than good, and has called for a different approach. 


Photo: Vincenzo Pinto/AFP

Environment Minister: Sergio Costa (unelected)

Costa, 59, is another Five Star nominee picked from outside the world of politics. A former carabinieri officer and regional commander of the Forestry Police, he is best known for his efforts to investigate widespread illegal waste dumping in and around Naples. 

Education Minister: Marco Bussetti (unelected)

Bussetti, 56, is another technocrat but this time one picked by the League. Like Salvini, with whom he appears in numerous Facebook photos, he is from Lombardy. He has spent much of his career studying and teaching at schools and universities in Milan, including as a sports instructor.

Agriculture Minister: Gian Marco Centinaio (League)

In many respects Centinaio's biography resembles Salvini's: entering northern politics as a teenager, 46-year-old Centinaio has belonged to the League for most of his adult life and espouses some of its most hardline views, including opposing the reform of Italy's citizenship laws and advocating mass deportation of immigrants. He was once famously recorded calling the Sicilian-born speaker of the senate a “shitty peasant”.


Centinaio (L) with Salvini in parliament. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

Regional Affairs Minister: Erika Stefani (League)

Stefani, 47, is a two-time senator and long-term member of the League. She'll represent the party's traditional ideals of federalism and regional autonomy. 

Minister for the South: Barbara Lezzi (M5S)

Puglia-born Lezzi, 46, will defend the interests of Italy's impoverished south, where the M5S picked up the bulk of its votes. She's the first minister dedicated exclusively to the region, which has previously been included in the more general Regional Affairs portfolio. The senator was criticized before the election for failing to pay back all her parliamentary expenses, as M5S requires of its lawmakers, but put it down to oversight.

Infrastructure and Transport Minister: Danilo Toninelli (M5S)

Currently the M5S's party whip in the senate, 44-year-old Toninelli has accompanied Di Maio to many of the coalition talks at the presidential palace. He is another of the party leader's allies and will be responsible for sensitive matters like the construction of a controversial cross-border train line between Turin and Lyon, which the M5S has traditionally opposed but will face pressure from the League to accept. 


Toninelli (L) behind Di Maio at the presidential palace. Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP

Families and Disabilities Minister: Lorenzo Fontana (League)

Catholic, conservative Fontana is a League die-hard who opposes abortion and euthanasia and has called same-sex marriage a threat to Italy's “community and traditions”. He was one of those calling for terminally ill British boy Alfie Evans to be brought to Italy for further care when doctors in the UK judged that nothing more could be done to save him.  

Public Administration Minister: Giulia Bongiorno (League)

Top criminal lawyer Bongiorno, 52, has successfully defended a string of high-profile clients, including former prime minister Giulio Andreotti and Raffaele Sollecito, accused of helping murder British student Meredith Kercher. She also co-founded an organization to assist women subjected to harassment. Having previously represented other right-wing parties, she joined the League ahead of this year's vote, in which she was elected to the senate. 


Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

Culture and Tourism Minister: Alberto Bonisoli (unelected)

Bonisoli, 57, ran unsuccessfully for the M5S in the last election. His day job is director of an art school in Milan, and he has promised to seek greater investment in arts and culture as well as focussing on attracting “quality tourism” to Italy.

Minister for Parliamentary Relations and Direct Democracy: Riccardo Fraccaro (M5S)

A prominent lawmaker within the M5S, Fraccaro, 37, will take charge of the party's efforts to root out corruption and red tape within parliament. He has already promised to cut the annuities paid out to lawmakers for life, which he calls “anachronistic and unacceptable”. He is the first minister to be charged with handling “direct democracy” in the history of Italy's government.


Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

POLITICS

‘Worrying developments’: NGOs warn of growing pressure on Italian media freedom

Media freedom in Italy has come increasingly under pressure since Giorgia Meloni's hard-right government took office, a group of European NGOs warned on Friday following an urgent fact-finding summit.

Published: 17 May 2024 17:40 CEST
‘Worrying developments’: NGOs warn of growing pressure on Italian media freedom

They highlighted among their concerns the continued criminalisation of defamation – a law Meloni herself has used against a high-profile journalist – and the proposed takeover of a major news agency by a right-wing MP.

The two-day mission, led by the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), was planned for the autumn but brought forward due to “worrying developments”, Andreas Lamm of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) told a press conference.

The ECPMF’s monitoring project, which records incidents affecting media freedom such as legal action, editorial interference and physical attacks, recorded a spike in Italy’s numbers from 46 in 2022 to 80 in 2023.

There have been 49 so far this year.

Meloni, the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, took office as head of a hard-right coalition government in October 2022.

A key concern of the NGOs is the increased political influence over the RAI public broadcaster, which triggered a strike by its journalists this month.

READ ALSO: Italy’s press freedom ranking drops amid fears of government ‘censorship’

“We know RAI was always politicised…but now we are at another level,” said Renate Schroeder, director of the Brussels-based EFJ.

The NGO representatives – who will write up a formal report in the coming weeks – recommended the appointment of fully independent directors to RAI, among other measures.

They also raised concerns about the failure of repeated Italian governments to decriminalise defamation, despite calls for reform by the country’s Constitutional Court.

Meloni herself successfully sued journalist Roberto Saviano last year for criticising her attitude to migrants.

“In a European democracy a prime minister does not respond to criticism by legally intimidating writers like Saviano,” said David Diaz-Jogeix of London-based Article 19.

He said that a proposed reform being debated in parliament, which would replace imprisonment with fines of up to 50,000 euros, “does not meet the bare minimum of international and European standards of freedom of expression”.

The experts also warned about the mooted takeover of the AGI news agency by a group owned by a member of parliament with Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini’s far-right League party – a proposal that also triggered journalist strikes.

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

Beatrice Chioccioli of the International Press Institute said it posed a “significant risk for the editorial independence” of the agency.

The so-called Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) consortium expressed disappointment that no member of Meloni’s coalition responded to requests to meet with them.

They said that, as things stand, Italy is likely to be in breach of a new EU media freedom law, introduced partly because of fears of deteriorating standards in countries such as Hungary and Poland.

Schroeder said next month’s European Parliament elections could be a “turning point”, warning that an increase in power of the far-right across the bloc “will have an influence also on media freedom”.

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