Italy’s premier-designate has told the president he has been unable to form what would have been western Europe’s first populist government.
A presidential palace official told reporters on Sunday night that Giuseppe Conte “has given back the mandate” to try to form a government that President Sergio Mattarella gave him four days earlier.
Conte, a little-known law professor with no political experience, took his list of ministers to President Sergio Mattarella, but the president rejected Conte’s candidate to the economy ministry, the 81-year-old Eurosceptic economist Paolo Savona.
Conte’s rejection paves the way for a new government crisis that could lead the country to a new election.
In a speech, the League’s leader Matteo Salvini said the two parties had worked “day and night” to provide Italy a new government.
Earlier
According to TGCOM, sources close to M5s, have said that the Mattarella is imposing a veto on the new government’s inclusion of Paolo Savona as Finance Minister.
Lega’s Matteo Salvini has been reported saying that if the new Government will be conditioned by the EU’s diktat, then there’s no way the government will actually take off.
The Italian President is meeting the designate Prime Minister after he earlier met the leaders of the two parties.
