Italian President turns to Mario Draghi to help resolve political crisis

It is not at all clear whether the majority of the Italian parliament would support Draghi as prime minister, even if the former president of the European Central Bank signals that he wants the job. If a viable coalition emerges for Draghi to lead, its most urgent tasks would include formulating a strategy for the economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The whole of Europe has a share in Italy’s economic fortune, due to the country’s faltering national debt and the confused sentiments of its electorate towards the European Union and the euro. Germany and other EU members agreed to subscribe to a huge pan-European recovery fund, largely to keep Italy from falling into a deep crisis. Italy’s economy contracted almost 9% in 2020, data released on Tuesday showed, one of the deepest falls in the eurozone.

President Mattarella invited Draghi on Tuesday after Italy’s left-wing coalition government went bankrupt and could not be reunited. That coalition, under Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, partially collapsed because of its inability to reach agreement on how to escape a deep recession resulting from Covid-19 and long blockades.

Italy’s urgent challenges mean it cannot afford weak government or months of postponed decisions while early elections are held, Mattarella said. “I call on all political forces in Parliament to support a high-level government,” said the president.

People close to Draghi say he has been reluctant to enter the minefield of Italian coalition governments, who tend to be short-lived and rebellious and whose breakdowns can tarnish the reputation of even highly esteemed leaders. But it is difficult to reject an appeal from the country’s head of state in the midst of a national emergency, these people say.

Draghi’s management as head of the ECB has made him one of the most respected public figures in Europe, at least within the continent’s largely centrist and pro-EU political system and with the financial markets. His pledge in 2012 to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro, including massive intervention in government bond markets, is widely credited with defusing Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, which threatened to separate the monetary union.

However, Italian anti-establishment parties, such as the populist 5-Star Movement and the anti-immigration League, have long been skeptical of Draghi, seeing him as the epitome of the country’s technocratic elite, which they blame for economic stagnation and social decay in Italy in the last quarter of a century. Without the support of one or both parties, Draghi would struggle to find a majority with which to govern.

League leader Matteo Salvini repeated his call for early elections on Tuesday, which opinion polls suggest his center-right alliance would win. However, other important League politicians, including party number two, Giancarlo Giorgetti, are known to support the idea of ​​a broad-based coalition under Draghi.

The 5 Star Movement may not like Draghi, but the election alternative could be worse: opinion polls point to heavy losses for the party, which has been the biggest source of support for the two Conte governments since 2018.

Mr. Conte, a little-known law professor, lasted longer in power than most observers expected. But he disagreed with a junior party that supported his coalition, the centrist group Italia Viva led by ex-Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who accused Conte of having no ideas on how to revive the Italian economy or spend the money to recover the economy. EU productively. Conte said he was open to Renzi’s ideas, but negotiations to fix the coalition were halted on Tuesday.

Write to Marcus Walker at [email protected] and Giovanni Legorano at [email protected]