ALVISE ARMELLINI
Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has more than enough on his plate as he deals with a raging coronavirus pandemic, but also faces the more immediate challenge of staying in office.
Despite a soaring COVID-19 death toll and with a deadline looming to come up with a credible plan to spend billions of euros in EU recovery funds, the government has been consumed for weeks by internal sniping from former premier Matteo Renzi.
Renzi has threatened to withdraw his small but pivotal Italia Viva (Italy Alive) party from the centre-left coalition that Conte heads, which would force its collapse.
“The situation is, in technical terms, a disaster’’, the politician, who led Italy from 2014 to 2016, said in an interview with the Rete 4 channel broadcast late on Monday.
Asked about the chances of Conte keeping his job, he said: “We’ll see.”
Renzi has complained about slow progress in rolling out coronavirus vaccinations and delays in school reopenings, and has lambasted Conte for seeking to concentrate power in his hands.
This includes setting spending priorities without enough consultation for the 196 billion euros ($240 billion) Italy expects to receive as part of a post-virus EU recovery plan, which is due to be submitted to Brussels by mid-April.
Italy has recorded more than 75,000 deaths from coronavirus, the highest toll in Europe, and the associated lockdowns and restrictions have hit the economy hard.
The leaked draft spending plan includes more than 50 priorities, with only nine billion euros for Italy’s cash-strapped health system.
“This cannot work, there’s too much money on handouts and too little on investments’’, Renzi said.
The showdown with Conte is expected to come to a head in the coming days, when ministers meet possibly as early as Wednesday to discuss the EU plans.
GOVT WITHOUT CONTE
Conte could try to placate Renzi with a cabinet reshuffle, either by persuading some ministers to step down or by resigning himself to seek a new mandate from President Sergio Mattarella with a revised list of cabinet ministers.
But this option is, of course, fraught with risks.
Once Conte resigns, Renzi could insist that the ruling coalition – which includes the populist Five Star Movement (M5S), the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and the leftist Free and Equals (LeU) — can survive only under a new prime minister.
However, there are no obvious alternative candidates. Former European Central Bank president Mario Draghi is often mentioned as a possible saviour for the country, but he has shown no appetite for a political career, at least in public.
— AFP
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