For Italy, it is the end of a parenthesis of almost a year and a half of stability and the entry into another zone of turbulence. Disavowed by three of the pillars that support his government of national unity, the President of the Italian Council, Mario Draghi, was reduced to presenting his resignation to the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, on Thursday. The subsequent dissolution of Parliament will prompt the organization of early elections next autumn, a vote with an uncertain result.
BFMTV.com returns this Friday to the elements of this crisis that has been simmering for many weeks at the top of the State and threatens to cause repercussions at European level.
• What happened?
Isolated at the head of his executive, Mario Draghi no longer had the means for his politics. That is why this Thursday morning, after a dizzying pace in front of the deputies, he made his way to the Quirinal Palace, in Rome, where he presented the resignation of his government to the president of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella.
“Mario Draghi has submitted his resignation and that of his government. The President of the Republic has taken note of this”, laconically observes the press release published immediately by the Head of State.
A text that sealed the fate of this team that came to power on February 13, 2021, in a context of health crisis. It should also be noted that this was the second time in a week that Mario Draghi had offered to leave, but on July 14 Sergio Mattarella had rejected his first resignation.
To understand the events of Thursday, we must first go back one day. On Wednesday, in effect, Mario Draghi asked parliamentarians for a vote of confidence to breathe new life into the bronchial tubes of a government that suffers from it. It is true that the President of the Council ended up getting it… but under such conditions that he could only see a rejection of his policy.
Three of the parties that make up his government of national unity refused to give him their trust, covering a large part of the political spectrum – because to the right of Forza Italia of the ghost Silvio Berlusconi was added the mistrust of the extreme right embodied by the Lega of Matteo Salvini , and the lack of the unclassifiable of the 5 Star Movement.
• Why was Mario Draghi fired by his partners?
All these formations had their reasons for wanting the fall of the government. In a speech delivered before senators, and transcribed Wednesday by the correspondent of the Figaro, Mario Draghi himself listed some of the grievances against him and the line he defended. “The reforms of the Superior Council of the Judiciary, the cadastre and the beach concessions have shown a progressive unraveling of the majorities on the modernization of the country”, he launched.
As noted again The Figaro the desire to rethink the allocation of bathing concessions, as well as the liberalization of taxis, had long been a bone of contention between Matteo Salvini’s Lega, which refused to listen to such measures, and Mario Draghi.
Beyond that, the latter did not intend to renounce this package of reforms because its implementation is the condition condition sine qua non the publication by the European Union of an aid plan of 200,000 million euros for Italy. However, the country, which is going through a particularly difficult economic situation, is seeing the cost of its debt weigh heavily and has suffered fully from a new wave of pollution linked to Covid-19.
Moreover, observing these Italian difficulties, the M5S had lit the first fuse of this new agitation of the transalpine public scene. The movement has criticized Mario Draghi for not going far enough on the social issue. Thus, on July 13, his boss -and former president of the Council Giuseppe Conte- lambasted the economic and energy recovery project planned by the executive. He referred to a simple “blank check”, as conveyed here by the guardiandissatisfied with the funds allocated.
Finally, a last pact -this time geopolitical- has contributed to the deterioration of the national union and the gradual distancing of its components: the Ukrainian file. Mario Draghi, a staunch supporter of Kyiv’s power, was annoyed at this point by the opposition of the M5S to sending weapons to the Ukrainian troops. And to the right, Silvio Berlusconi has never hidden his closeness to Vladimir Putin, built up when he himself ran Italian affairs. As for Matteo Salvini, in the past he expressed his admiration for the Kremlin master.
• What are the consequences of Mario Draghi’s resignation?
In the televised speech given on Thursday following the announcement of Mario Draghi’s departure, Sergio Mattarella pointed out that these differences had led to irreconcilable positions. The President of the Italian Republic, who had nevertheless urged his President of the Council to try everything to try to fix things between themselves seven days ago, pointed to “the absence of parliamentary support for the government and the absence of prospects of giving birth to a new majority. Therefore, he dissolved Parliament.
This dissolution, in fact, upsets the Italian electoral calendar. Although the next legislative elections were to be held in the spring of 2023, they will therefore take place at the end of September or, at the latest, at the beginning of next October.
The outcome of the vote already looks very uncertain. According to a survey by the SWG Institute -and published on July 18, although three days before the effective resignation of Mario Draghi-, 24% of current projections go to the post-fascist party led by Giorgia Meloni, Fratelli d’Italia. Then comes the Democratic Party and its 22%, 14% from the Lega, then the 11.2% invested in the M5S. With a score of 7.4%, Forza Italia seems disengaged… But the total intentions attributed to right-wing and far-right formations make a coalition between them the favorite to succeed the Draghi government.
The current government will also remain until then to attend to current affairs, as Sergio Mattarella pointed out in his speech.
• What were the reactions to this resignation?
The defeat of Mario Draghi aroused many reactions. Even before his departure seemed inevitable, the Italians seemed to rally around him. While a study, cited here, showed that seven out of ten Italians expected to see him reach the end of his term, a group of mayors launched a request for support last Sunday. The call ended up collecting 2,000 signatures from elected officials from all sides.
In addition, the instability of the current international context, the difficulties of the economy, have led European officials to worry in recent hours about the forced defection of this economist, former president of the European Central Bank, and known for his budgetary orthodoxy. The (Italian) Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, even described as “irresponsible” the parties that had failed the President of the Council, accusing them of sinking the peninsula in “a perfect storm.”
Emmanuel Macron carried more weight in the statement he issued on Thursday. Thus, he praised a “great Italian statesman” along with a “trusted partner”. Next fall he will say whether the French president can still find the right match with the Boot government.
Source: BFM TV
