ROME: Italy’s premier-designate Giuseppe Conte said Sunday he would present his new coalition cabinet by midweek at the latest, as he races to resolve the political crisis in the eurozone’s third largest economy.
“At the start of next week — not Monday, but Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest — we need to be able to finish” negotiations between the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the centre-left Democratic Party, he said. At that point Conte will present his cabinet line-up and government programme to Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella.
Conte and his new ministers would then be expected to be sworn in on Thursday, before facing a parliament vote on Friday.
After public spats between the parties — who until recently were sworn enemies — there was now a “good working atmosphere”, Conte told the Fatto Quotidiano daily via video link.
The Five Star Movement (M5S) and Democratic Party (PD) have agreed to form a new coalition to stave off new elections after Matteo Salvini, the hard-line head of the far-right League, pulled the plug on the government. Tensions remain however.
There have been persistent reports that M5S head Luigi Di Miao has threatened to pull out of the deal should he not get the deputy prime minister job.
Conte said Sunday he was concentrated on policies rather than posts, while the PD suggested the deputy prime minister post should be scrapped to take it out of the equation.
Di Maio loyalists accused the centre-left of trying to cut their leader off at the knees.
But on Saturday, the M5S chief was given a rare public ticking off by the Movement’s founder, comic Beppe Grillo.
In a video on his blog, he said he was “exhausted” by the talk of who-gets-what and the M5S’s insistence that its 20-point plan be respected by the PD.
He lamented “this agonising…this lack of humour, of fun, of exhilaration”, urging the parties to “sit down at a table and be elated because (you) belong to this extraordinary moment of change”.
Conte said he “shared” Grillo’s feelings, as did PD leader Nicola Zingaretti, saying “let’s change everything, and respect one another”. As far as the cabinet posts go, Conte said he would invite the M5S and PD to give him suggestions — rather than make demands — “so I can choose the best team”.
He insisted the coalition would have a “single shared programme” where it would be difficult to distinguish which measures were championed by which party — a bipolarity that had plagued the outgoing League-M5S coalition. – AFP
