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| Prime minister candidate Giuseppe Conte, picked by the Five Star Movement and the League, stepped aside, making a temporary technical government seemingly inevitable (AFP Photo/Vincenzo PINTO) |
Rome (AFP) - Italy could be forced to hold new elections after Giuseppe Conte gave up his bid to form a government following the collapse of talks with the president over including a eurosceptic economy minister in his cabinet.
Conte, 53,
a lawyer and political novice, picked for prime minister by the
anti-establishment Five Star Movement and far-right League seeking to create a
coalition government, was given the green light to form his cabinet on
Wednesday, but he still had to present a list of ministers that the head of
state would agreed to before his government could seek approval in parliament.
"I
have given up my mandate to form the government of change," said Conte to
reporters after leaving failed talks with President Sergio Mattarella.
Conte's
decision to step aside leaves Italy in a political crisis nearly three months
after March's inconclusive general election.
Following
the collapsed talks, Mattarella has summoned Carlo Cottarelli, former director
of the International Monetary Fund's fiscal affairs department, for talks on
Monday, with a temporary technical government now looking inevitable as Italy
faces the strong possibility of new elections in the autumn.
Cottarelli,
64, worked at the International Monetary Fund from 2008 to 2013 and became
known as "Mr Scissors" for making cuts to public spending in Italy.
Savona
choice sinks deal
Mattarella
confirmed that the nomination by the Five Star Movement and the League of Paolo
Savona for economy minister saw the end of Conte's brief mandate.
In his
latest book, "Like a Nightmare and a Dream", 81-year-old Savona calls
the euro a "German cage" and says that Italy needs a plan to leave
the single currency "if necessary".
"I
accepted every proposed minister apart from the minister of the economy,"
Mattarella told reporters.
A former
judge of Italy's constitutional court, Mattarella has refused to bow to what he
saw as "diktats" from the two parties which he considered contrary to
the country's interests.
He had watched
for weeks as Five Star and the League set about trying to strike an alliance
that would give Italy's hung parliament a majority.
The
president said that he has done "everything possible" to aid the
formation of a government, but that an openly eurosceptic economy minister ran
against the parties' joint programme promise to simply "change Europe for
the better from an Italian point of view".
"I
asked for the (economy) ministry an authoritative person from the parliamentary
majority who is consistent with the government programme... who isn't seen as a
supporter of a line that could probably, or even inevitably, provoke Italy's
exit from the euro," he added.
Mattarella
said Conte refused to support "any other solution" and then, faced
with the president's refusal to approve the choice of Savona, gave up his
mandate to be prime minister.
The leaders
of Five Star and the League, Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini, were infuriated
by Mattarella's refusal to accept Savona, a respected financier and economist.
"Why
don't we just say that in this country it's pointless that we vote, as the
ratings agencies, financial lobbies decide the governments," a livid Di
Maio said in a video on Facebook.
"When
the people give more than 51 percent of consensus to political forces that want
to represent the interests of the Italian people, they find a way to block
everything. It's unacceptable."
Salvini,
who was Savona's biggest advocate and a fellow eurosceptic, said on Sunday that
Italy wasn't a "colony", and that "we won't have Germany tell us
what to do".
He told
supporters: "Either we can work to give a future to this country and to
our children, or else, in a democracy, if we are still in a democracy, there is
only one thing to do: give the floor to the Italians."
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