Rome bureau chief for Bloomberg @business. All things #Italy -- but mostly admin. @ecfr council member. Just personal views here. Tips? aspeciale@bloomberg.net
Jul 14, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
So it happened. Crisis is on, very unclear how it will end (more on this below)
#Italy's Prime Minister Mario #Draghi will offer his resignation following a split in his coalition, according to a statement from his office bloomberg.com/news/articles/…@chiaraalbanese@aspeciale
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Old political hands in Rome are *very* confident that this can all be patched up easily.
After all, #Draghi still has a majority in parliament, and no one wants early elections or a leap in the dark right now (in the middle of the energy crisis, as Russia escalates, etc)
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Jul 13, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Maybe you haven't noticed but apparently there's an impeding government crisis in #Italy (again)
Former PM Conte and his Five Star Movement have been meeting for more than 7 hours.
Still no visibility on whether they will vote for Draghi tomorrow or walk out 🤷
All the background on what is going on, and what this is all about is here👇
Nearly five months after the invasion of Ukraine, #Italy has cut its reliance on Russian gas imports to 25%, from about 40%
By contrast, #Germany -- Europe’s largest economy -- still imports roughly 35% of its gas needs from Russia
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
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The government made a strategic decision at the start of the war to quickly seek alternative supplies, #Draghi told reporters late on Tuesday.
“#Italy cannot ever find itself in a situation of geopolitical dependency. This is not acceptable”
So, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was interviewed by #Italy's TV channel Rete 4 (owned by Berlusconi's Mediaset/Media for Europe)
It was the first time he was on Western media since the start of Russia's war against Ukraine.
Some highlights but first...
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... be warned that, in keeping with Italian tradition of softball journalism, the interview was mostly polite prompts for Lavrov's monologues, without almost any attempt to confront him with facts.
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