- The 5-star coalition party rejects the vote of confidence
- Movement seen as provoking a possible political crisis
- Prime Minister Draghi meets with President Mattarella after the vote
ROME, July 14 (Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s coalition government appeared on the verge of collapse on Thursday after the 5-Star Movement, one of its members, did not support a vote of confidence including measures to offset the cost of living. crisis.
Minutes after the vote, Draghi went to the Quirinal Palace in Rome to meet with President Sergio Mattarella, the supreme arbiter of Italian politics, who will have to decide how to resolve the crisis, a government source said. .
It was unclear whether former European Central Bank (ECB) director Draghi, 74, had planned to resign.
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The vote of confidence had become a focal point of tensions within Draghi’s broad coalition as his parties prepare to fight each other in a national election scheduled for early 2023.
Draghi raised the stakes by saying he would not want to lead a 5-star government, which emerged as the largest party in the previous 2018 elections, but has since suffered desertions and a loss of public support.
The vote of confidence, which was passed by 172 votes to 39, was used to speed up parliamentary approval of a multimillion-dollar aid package that also includes a provision allowing the city of Rome to build a garbage incinerator. giant. Read more
5-Star has been pushing Draghi to do more to help cushion the rising cost of living by increasing government loans and has also long opposed the incinerator project.
EARLY ELECTIONS?
The 5-star decision plunged Italy into political uncertainty and the risk of undermining efforts to secure billions of euros in EU funds, tackle a damaging drought and reduce its dependence on Russian gas.
It could also lead to national elections as early as September or October.
Italy is due to vote in the first half of next year and tensions have been rising between members of a coalition that has been in place since early 2021 and straddles both sides of the political divide.
The risks of a collapse of the Draghi government affected financial markets where yields on Italian bonds rose sharply, indicating that investors are demanding a higher premium to keep their debt down and stocks fell.
The vote comes at a difficult time for Italy, the eurozone’s third-largest economy, where borrowing costs have risen sharply as the ECB begins to tighten its monetary policy.
The ECB is working on a new tool to contain the divergence between the costs of German loans and those of heavily indebted member states such as Italy.
Draghi, Italy’s sixth prime minister in the last decade, had seen himself as a guarantee that Italy would respect any conditions linked to the new mechanism, but his departure would generate new uncertainty.
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Written by Keith Weir; Edited by Crispian Balmer and Alison Williams
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