Di Maio issues ultimatum to Mattarella – Or close discussions within today or elections.

“This government game either closes within the next 24 hours or does not close anymore, we have already waited long enough”. This was stated by the political leader of the M5s, Luigi Di Maio. Along the same lines the leader of the Lega, Matteo Salvini: “Either we leave or it is enough for us, I refuse to treat again for weeks”.

The two leaders of Italy’s would be coalition on Sunday, as they keep mounting pressure on President Sergio Mattarella to endorse Paolo Savona as Minister of Finance.

The message is clear, either the proposed Finance Minister, deemed to be Eurosceptic, is accepted or else Italy will have to face an election. The leaders of M5s and La lega gave until today to finish the discussions otherwise the game is over, and on again.

The standoff between Italy’s president and the populist coalition hoping to form a government centres on Paolo Savona described as a fierce critic of the Maastricht Treaty. In his latest book “Like a Nightmare and a Dream”, Savona calls the single currency a “German cage”, and his hostility to the euro is causing President Sergio Mattarella to hesitate over his appointment amid a flurry of warnings from Brussels. Despite the fierce backing of prime minister nominee Giuseppe Conte, Five Star Movement leader Luigi Di Maio and in particular League chief Matteo Salvini, Mattarella is refusing to give in, despite worries the coalition will collapse if he wasn’t given the role.

Vincenzo Visco, current head of the Bank of Italy and a former finance minister in leftist governments between 1996 and 2000, told the Corriere della Sera that Savona “has all the capacity and credibility” to fill the post but “two big problems”.

The first, Visco says, would be applying an anti-austerity programme negotiated by Five Star and the League, “which he knows to be completely inapplicable” given Italy’s 2.3 trillion euro public debt.

The second, according to Visco, would be that his political positions are “radically and suicidally anti-German … that could create problems both for him and for us.”