The ‘premier’ presented his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella in search of a new majority that allows him to form a Government, the third since 2018.
The Italian Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte , goes to the Quirinal Palace today to resign, resigned to taking a step back, aware that from now on nothing will be taken for granted and that the risk of being outside the Chigi Palace has never been greater. The government crisis, after a week of uncertainty, has reached a crucial point. Conte chaired a Council of Ministers this morning in which he reported his resignation hours before going to communicate it to President Sergio Matterella.
“I thank the entire government team, each minister, for each day of these months together,” would have been the words of Conte in his farewell to the ministers of the Executive formed by the anti-system Five Star Movement (M5S) and the progressive Party Democrat (PD) and Free and Equal (LEU), who dismissed him with applause and expressed their support. “My esteem and total confidence in a capable president, a good person and who can guide the country with balance in the most difficult months of its recent history,” Education Minister Lucia Azzolina wrote on Twitter .
Conte now hopes to obtain Mattarella’s mandate to try to form a new Executive, the third since 2018, that brings together more support and that allows him to implement a plan to reactivate the third economy in the euro area, affected by the pandemic that has left more than 85,000 dead in the country. After the half-hour meeting with the President, the outgoing Prime Minister meets with the Presidents of the Senate and House, Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati and Roberto Fico. It is not expected to give a press conference, but rather to broadcast a video message.
After presenting his resignation this afternoon to Mattarella, Conte will begin negotiating a new majority, which would include Matteo Renzi’s Italia Viva and other centrist forces. This is the only solution to the impasse in which the prime minister finds himself , who has not obtained the necessary support and to the risk of losing (tomorrow or Thursday) the decisive vote in the Senate on the management of the head of Justice , Alfonso Bonafede , member of the Five Star Movement (M5S).
When he receives the resignation, Mattarella will open the consultations – presumably tomorrow afternoon and that could last a couple of days , Efe details – with the presidents of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate and the parliamentary groups.
The hypothesis of a “Government of national salvation” is more and more concrete, although in reality it would be a “Conte ter” (Conte tres), based on a large majority with support from the moderate center-right area and also from Renzi’s party, whose turn rejects the 5 Star Movement. Facing the vote in the Senate on the management of Bonafede, -where Conte did get a simple majority last week to be able to continue governing after the departure of Italia Viva from the coalition- the premier would not have the vote of some senators who They have already announced their disapproval of the minister’s management, as have all 18 Italia Viva. The leader of the League, Matteo Salvini, has asked the center-right to remain compact and ask for elections.
“THE MOMENT OF TRUTH”
“It is the moment of truth” , Conte said, according to government sources, “now we will understand the true objective of the resignation of the ministers of Italia Viva”. “Now everything changes” , admitted the premier , aware that he is entering an unknown territory, full of pitfalls and pitfalls. A new game, the end of which no one can predict. The game is to expand the majority, to build a political team committed to supporting its third government in a heap of hours, in a spirit of “national salvation.”
The numbers don’t fit at the moment. Conte resigns today knowing that he will have to find the majority, the objective is to raise it to 175 senators , but in case of not achieving it, he will notify Mattarella, who will have to reopen consultations to study another name that gathers a majority, or in case of to prove the impossibility of forming a new Executive, to decide to dissolve the Chambers to go to elections.
The leader of the conservative Forza Italia, Silvio Berlusconi , for his part, clarified that he will not support the current Conte Executive and that the only solution is that of a government “that represents the substantial unity of the country in a time of emergency” because ” any other solution means prolonging a paralysis that the country cannot afford. “
After the resignation of Conte, and until the inauguration of a new Executive, the outgoing Government remains in office to conduct current affairs , which includes the eventual issuance of decree laws in cases of need and urgency.