🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹 Italy seems to be rapidly descending into political chaos. Five Star and the Brothers want to impeach the President. If the League backs them tomorrow they have the votes to do this. What is happening? A quick thread 👇
1) Earlier this evening the newly-appointed Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, (a previously unknown law professor who reportedly had 'massaged' aspects of his CV) returned the mandate to form a Government to the President of the Republic. He gave up.
2) In Italy's political system the President appoints the Government on the advice of the Prime Minister. The law professor PM was a compromise candidate because the shaky coalition of Five Star and League couldn't agree which of them should be in charge.
3) The President has now called a technocrat to discuss appointing him as PM. That's happened before in Italy but the difference is that the League and Five Star now have a majority in both Senate and Chamber of Deputies. How will this technocrat win the confidence of Parliament?
4) The President has summoned a former IMF director of fiscal affairs Carlo Cottarelli to see him tomorrow. This choice of technocrat candidate seems a deliberate 🖕 to Five Star & the League. Cottarelli is nicknamed Mister Forbici - Mr Scissors for his backing of spending cuts
5) Yet in their joint programme of Government - analysed here by @OpenEurope analyst @EneaDesideri openeurope.org.uk/intelligence/e… - Five Star & League agreed on a substantial programme of spending & tax cuts. Not quite the forte of Mr ✂️
6) Why did Conte fail to form a Government? Because the President refused to accept Paolo Savona as Finance Minister. Savona - an Economics Professor (and a far higher profile professor than Conte himself btw) - has previously criticised the Euro. SIN AGAINST HOLY GHOST KLAXON
7) In an interview Savona said that either Italy needed to take a step forward and become a single [Eurozone] state OR Italy needed to take a step back to a system where devaluation was possible and leave the Euro. You can watch here but it's in Italian:
8) The President vetoed his appointment as Finance Minister, or indeed to the Government, saying he had to protect Italian savings and taking Italy out of the Euro hadn't been discussed during the elections.
9) We don't know of a firm plan by the Five Star/League to leave Euro. Indeed the Five Star have rather softened their Eurosceptism recently and even the League mollified there anti-Euro stance to a degree. Although note that this League MP has the Lira as his background👇 
10) But is it constitutional for the President to veto an appointment because he doesn't approve of his policies? Or rather his opinions? This wasn't a question of an unqualified candidate or conflict of interest or nepotism. The President just doesn't agree with Savona's views
11) The recent Italian elections were an earthquake. The Five Star and League raced ahead; Renzi's Democrats and Berlusconi's Forza Italia fell back. Yet rather than respecting the democratic mandate of League & 5 Star, the President is in danger of being seen to frustrate it.
12) It's hard to over-emphasise just how desperate many Italians are for change. Most young Italians I know have voted at least once for the Five Star. The League morphed from a separatist party to a national one, leapfrogging over their partner party, Berlusconi's Forza Italia
13) This evening the rhetorical temperature was red hot. Salvini, the League's head, was saying that Berlin must not be allowed to choose Italy's Government. He said Europe was limiting Italy's sovereignty. The Five Star are calling for new elections.
14) It's still unclear whether the League will back impeachment calls. They wont want to be outflanked by the Five Star but have also been careful not to alienate Berlusconi (with whom they are in coalitions with at regional level). Berlusconi has strongly opposed impeachment
15) If they do back impeachment then the President is gone. If they dont, new elections seem likely. [Although could a president threatened with impeachment dissolve parliament?] Either way the road ahead may be very bumpy for Italy but also for Europe as a whole.
16) Macron's comments during his Charlemagne prize speech that Brexit was an alarm bell heard also in Italian elections, in Poland & Hungary - was correct. Yet unlike UK, Italy is in Eurozone, its 3rd biggest economy. Are the contradictions of Euro finally catching up with it?
17/17) Perhaps. But the most worrying thing is that rather than hearing that alarm bell ⏰⏰⏰ and changing tack, all Europe's political elites seem to be able to do - with very few exceptions - is plough straight ahead, even faster.
