After almost a month of political crisis, Italy has a new Government. The coalition between the 5 Star Movement (M5S) and the Social Democratic Party (PD), will be led again by the recently resigned prime minister Giuseppe Conte and will be sworn in on Thursday.
On Wednesday Conte announced the composition of the Council of Ministers, in which the leader of the M5S, Luigi Di Maio, will take over Foreign Affairs.
In total there will be 22 ministers, nine of which are from the PD, 11 from the M5S.
Among the most important portfolios, Lorenzo Guerini (PD) will occupy that of Defense, while former current President of the Economic Affairs Committee in the European Parliament Roberto Gualtieri, also of the PD, will take over as Economy Minister.
The Ministry of the Interior will be taken over by technocrat Luciana Lamorgese, who will have to deal with the phenomenon of immigration and security issues on which the former right-wing minister Matteo Salvini wielded an iron fist.
The Secretary General of the Presidency, Ugo Zampetti, said that the new government will take an oath on Thursday at the Quirinal Palace, seat of the presidency of the Republic. On Friday or Monday next week, the new government will seek a vote of confidence in both Houses of Parliament.
The prime minister, who also headed the previous coalition cabinet between the M5S and Matteo Salvini’s League, announced the composition of the new government after meeting with Italian President Sergio Mattarella at the Quirinale Palace.
Mattarella accepted the proposal without vetoing any nomination, thus giving the green light to the formation of the 66th government of the Italian Republic.
The leader of the Five Stars and new head of Foreign Affairs, Di Maio, said on Facebook: “It will be and should be a brave and ambitious Government, capable of carrying out important measures for the growth and development of Italy.”
Prime Minister Conte said it will be a Government “reinforced by a program that looks to the future” and added: “We will dedicate our best energies, all our powers to improve Italy in the interest of all citizens.”
And the leader of the PD, Nicola Zingaretti, said that “now is the time to change Italy” and it has been possible to “stop Salvini and the mere announcement of this new phase makes Italy again the protagonist in Europe.”
Speaking on Italian television, ousted Interior Minister Matteo Salvini called the formation of the new government “an insult to democracy”
“It is a government of losers, which has no majority either in Parliament or among Italians,” he said, adding that “sooner or later, in a month, or in a year or two we will have to return to the vote. Then we will see.”
