the scenarios that open in Italy with the government crisis

The failed resignation of the Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, has served to stage the crisis that his coalition government is experiencing. And, also, to put the sixth gear on the way to the next stage. The imbalance between the ruler and his partners has its next stop in Parliament by order of the head of state, Sergio Mattarella, who was in charge of rejecting the resignation, while inviting Draghi to give explanations.

There the future of Italy is decided, which goes through early elections or the departure of the Government of the 5 Star Movement (M5S), in charge of giving Draghi the thrust that has led to his attempted resignation.

After weeks of tensions, the crisis broke out this Thursday within his coalition when one of his main partners, the M5S, decided not to vote in the Senate a motion of confidence to the same government of which he is a part. And Draghi decided to resign.

With the discretion that characterizes him, he gathered all his ministers to inform them that he had decided to resign and put an end to the national coalition government that he has chaired since February 2021, supported by all the groups except Giorgia Meloni’s ultras. Y immediately afterwards he appeared at the Roman Quirinale Palace to formalize his resignation to the head of state, who however rejected it.

[Sergio Mattarella no acepta la dimisión de Mario Draghi como primer ministro italiano]

But Mattarella, who is reluctantly repeating his mandate in the highest position in the country, responded to Draghi that the crisis must be settled in the two parliamentary seats, in the Senate and in the Chamber of Deputies, predictably on Wednesday.

“The President of the Republic has not accepted the resignation and has invited the President of the Government to appear in Parliament to give explanations and so that an assessment of the situation that has been created after today’s debates in the Senate,” reads a statement from the Head of State.

In this way, the former president of the European Central Bank, seen in Italy as one of the most valuable resources of the Republicyou can check whether or not you have a majority to meet your goal: exhaust the legislature in its natural term, March 2023.

What happens in Italy?

The coalition has been reeling for some time on account of a delicate decree with aid to families and companies against inflation that the M5S severely criticizes for seeing “insufficient” and for including the financing of a garbage incinerator for Rome.

The problem is that the final vote of the decree was proposed as a confidence motion on the Governmenta stratagem frequently resorted to in Italian politics to speed up the processing of laws, since it prevents the introduction of amendments.

And, in a paradoxical and convoluted movement, the Five Stars decided not to vote the motion of confidence on the very Government of which they are a part.

A kind of “harakiri” in which some glimpse the desire of the M5S to go over to the opposition and try to recover the lost electorate after the recent bumps in the polls and in the face of the imminent electoral campaign.

Continuity support

Throughout this angry Italian day that emerged while the beaches were overflowing, national politics was divided between those who aspire to that Draghi stays in power, with or without the M5Sand those who anticipate “giving the word back to the Italians”.

The leader of the Democratic Party (PD, center-left), Enrico Letta, urged Draghi to go to Parliament to “verify” if he can continue in the Government, an option that no one rules out because Draghi’s resignation was not accompanied by the epithet “irrevocable” .

“I think right now the continuity of the government would be very important“, referred Letta, who in recent days has defended that without Draghi the other option was to advance elections.

Other parties in the coalition expressed themselves in the same terms, such as Matteo Renzi’s centrist Italia Viva or Together for the Future, the split from the M5S led by the current Foreign Minister, Luigi Di Maio, loyal to Draghi.

The far-right Matteo Salvini, who also supports the Executive, demanded an early election, while Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative Forza Italia only revealed a concern for the economic, social and business situation in Italy. Meloni herself did not take long to post a tweet in which she asked for “the freedom to choose who to represent.”

black clouds

And it is that the greatest concern that haunts the country is that the government crisis is occurring at a difficult time, in the midst of a rise in energy prices, with skyrocketing inflation and in the midst of a strategy to diversify and end dependence on Russian gas after the invasion of Ukraine.

But also concerned at European level, as Letta said: “If the Draghi government falls, Italy will be the third country, after France and Great Britain, to enter into a situation of profound difficulty,” he warned his political partners.

At the moment, only with the rumors of resignation, the Milan Stock Exchange plummeted 3.44% today at the close and the risk premium touched 225 points.