{"id":1671,"date":"2021-01-19T13:01:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T18:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/?p=1671"},"modified":"2021-01-20T13:02:26","modified_gmt":"2021-01-20T18:02:26","slug":"italian-pm-battles-for-coalitions-survival-over-covid-recovery-plan-theguardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/2021\/01\/19\/italian-pm-battles-for-coalitions-survival-over-covid-recovery-plan-theguardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Italian PM battles for coalition\u2019s survival over Covid recovery plan TheGuardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Italia Viva party\u2019s departure deprives Conte of majority, with crunch vote on Tuesday<\/strong><\/p>

\"\"<\/a>
Italy\u2019s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, speaking about the current political situation in the lower house, the chamber of deputies, on Monday.\u00a0Photograph: Stefano Carofei\/REX\/Shutterstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Italy deserves a \u201ccohesive government\u201d, its prime minister,\u00a0Giuseppe Conte<\/a>, has said as he began the fight for his coalition\u2019s survival.<\/p>

Conte told the lower house of parliament on Monday that the political crisis triggered last week by the former prime minister Matteo Renzi was \u201cunfounded\u201d and risked severely damaging the country at a time when Italians were struggling with health and financial worries.<\/p>

\u201cIt comes at a crucial stage, in the middle of a pandemic, with citizens suffering from the loss of loved ones,\u201d Conte added. \u201cWe risk everything, and losing contact with reality. Was there really a need to open a political crisis at this time?\u201d<\/p>

Conte is seeking to fill the void created by Renzi,\u00a0who yanked his small Italia Viva party from the ruling coalition<\/a>\u00a0over disagreements about the handling of the pandemic and a post-Covid economic recovery plan.<\/p>

Italia Viva\u2019s departure deprived Conte of an absolute majority in both houses, and votes taking place later on Monday in the lower house and on Tuesday in the upper house will determine whether his fragile coalition can stay in power.<\/p>

The vote in the upper house, where Conte could fall short of gaining the support of an absolute majority of senators, is the more crucial.<\/p>

While Conte acknowledged errors made in managing the pandemic, he said he was speaking with his \u201chead high\u201d and not out of arrogance as he appealed for support from parliamentarians who had Italy\u2019s \u201cdestiny at heart\u201d.<\/p>

Renzi told Corriere della Sera on Sunday that his 18 senators would probably abstain. However, his overtures about returning to the coalition if his party\u2019s demands were met appeared to be rejected by Conte, who said: \u201cWhat has happened cannot be cancelled.\u201d The Five Star Movement (M5S), the biggest party in the coalition, and the Democratic party (PD) have refused to work with Renzi again.<\/p>

Renzi has been widely criticised for a move that many have deemed irresponsible. With Italy poised to receive more than \u20ac200bn (\u00a3178bn) from the EU to reboot its economy, he argued his actions were needed in order to stop Conte amassing too much power. Renzi had criticised the spending plan as weak, arguing that the money risked being squandered. His other main grievance was over Italy not tapping the EU\u2019s bailout fund \u2013 the European stability mechanism (ESM) \u2013 to shore up the health service. M5S has always resisted this, fearing that it would leave Italy beholden to strict EU austerity rules.<\/p>

Analysts say the outcome of the crisis is difficult to predict. If Conte fails to win a solid majority, he is expected to resign, paving the way for a possible government of national unity, or, failing that, new elections.<\/p>

\u201cConte\u2019s message was clear \u2013 either I get new senators or I resign,\u201d said Franco Pavoncello, a politics professor and president of John Cabot University in Rome. \u201cHe needs a lot of people \u2026 he can try to keep going but if he doesn\u2019t get the majority it\u2019s going to be difficult.\u201d<\/p>

Massimiliano Panarari, an associate professor at Mercatorium University in Rome, said: \u201cThere will be lots of negotiations going on and everything will depend on what happens after the vote in the senate.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Italia Viva party\u2019s departure deprives Conte of majority, with crunch vote on Tuesday Italy deserves a \u201ccohesive government\u201d, its prime minister,\u00a0Giuseppe Conte, has said as he began the fight for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1673,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/4000-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1674,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1671\/revisions\/1674"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}