The law professor tapped to try to form Italy’s first populist government on Friday spent a second day in talks, a possible indication that the political novice was finding tough going in assembling a Cabinet that could keep rival forces together in a coalition.
Giuseppe Conte on Friday evening returned to the presidential palace, about 48 hours after Italian President Sergio Mattarella gave him the mandate in hopes of breaking a political impasse that resulted from inconclusive elections on March 4.
Neither Conte, who left by a palace back door, nor the presidential office immediately issued a statement.
However, Italian media quoted palace sources as saying that Conte came to confer with Mattarella in “informal talks.”
A virtual stranger to politics, Conte was the compromise choice of the two populist rivals who, unable to form a government without the help of the other, joined forces to forge a coalition that could get to work giving Italians tax relief and guaranteed income to poor people, even if the measures could balloon Italy’s debt to unsustainable levels.
The rivals are Matteo Salvini, who leads the right-wing, northern-based League, and Luigi Di Maio, head of the Five Star Movement, whose pledge to guarantee a basic income to the unemployed helped it triumph in the economically lagging south in the elections for parliament.
Salvini, Di Maio and Conte huddled earlier in the day in Rome.
“We’re working to give a government of change to this country,” Conte tweeted, but otherwise was tight-lipped about how his efforts were going.
Nervousness about what could be a government hostile to EU insistence on fiscally sound measures has rattled the bond markets.
On Friday, the benchmark spread of points between 10-year Italian bonds and German bonds climbed past 200 points.
One thorny question has been the choice of economy minister. Salvini has been pushing for a former minister, Paolo Savona, who has likened Italy’s being a member of the common euro currency to being enclosed in a “German cage,” a reference to Berlin’s stress on austerity measures for debt-ridden countries such as Italy.
Mattarella, whose role as head of state includes approving a new government’s Cabinet picks, is staunchly pro-euro.
Di Maio glossed over any difficulties in agreeing on a Cabinet team, telling reporters that the three were perfectly in sync.
Outgoing Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni on Friday assembled staff to thank them, as his hours in power as the head of a Democratic Party-led government neared their end.
The Democrats were trashed in the March elections.
Before wishing all “good luck,” Gentiloni had some words of caution to a nation on the brink of a populist-led government.
Referring to the Democrats’ five years in power, when the Italian economy began growing again, but apparently too slowly to convince voters, Gentiloni said that “alas, to go off track, only a few months, or even just a few weeks” is all it takes to reverse recovery.
Shortly before Conte went to confer with the Italian president, Salvini flew to Milan, apparently for family reasons, but another sign that no new government was about to be born.
Salvini, thwarted in his aim to become prime minister, is keen on becoming interior minister to push the League’s hard line against migrants.
Earlier on Friday, Conte met with the Italian central bank governor.
On Thursday, he had met with some of the individual investors who lost their savings after several small banks failed.
While the outgoing government has covered a very small part of the losses, Conte has said he intends to make awarding damages a priority.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese