• Thursday, 04 July 2024

Draghi era seemingly ending as key Italian parties withhold support

Draghi era seemingly ending as key Italian parties withhold support
Rome, 21 July 2022 (dpa/MIA) - Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi fell well short of the broad approval he wanted in a confidence vote in the Senate on Wednesday, greatly increasing the chances he will offer his resignation to the president. Although the 74-year-old won the vote with 95 votes in favour to 39 against, three major parties - The League, Forza Italia and the Five Star Movement (M5S) - did not take part in the vote. Nonetheless, a similar vote is expected in the Chamber of Deputies on Thursday, even though there is no reason to think the outcome will be different. The unsatisfactory result makes it likely that Draghi will offer his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella for the second time in a week after the president refused to accept it last week. Draghi plans to appear in the Chamber of Deputies on Thursday. On the agenda, the larger of the two parliamentary chambers announced a debate on Draghi's speech for 9 am (0700 GMT). Meanwhile, a meeting with Mattarella on Wednesday was no longer on the agenda, a spokesman for the Quirinal Palace confirmed on Wednesday evening when asked. It was not yet clear when and whether Draghi would visit the 80-year-old head of state on Thursday. Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio - who recently left M5S to form the Together for the Future party - said the incident reflected a failure of politics. "We've gambled with the future of Italy. The results of this tragic vote will go down in history," he said. "Starting tomorrow, nothing will be the way that it was." The current government crisis was prompted last week when members of the populist M5S refused to participate in a vote on a massive aid package needed to prop up the economy in the wake of Russia's war in Ukraine. Draghi's government still gained the required majority for that package without M5S on board, but he said at the time that the move meant the coalition's "pact of trust" had been broken and offered to resign. The League and Forza Italia have both said they are unwilling to keep working with M5S after the crisis prompted by the Ukraine vote. Massimiliano Romeo, the head of the League in the Senate, said its representatives would support Draghi only if he formed a government without M5S. Otherwise the Lega would back fresh elections. Draghi had said earlier on Wednesday that he was prepared to stay on as prime minister, provided that the feuding coalition parties united behind him. "I've never been so proud to be an Italian," the 74-year-old statesman, who is not a member of any of Italy's political parties, told the senate. But he added: "A new pact of trust that is sincere and correct is needed, like the one that has so far allowed us to change this country for the better." In his speech to the Senate, Draghi laid out the targets of his government, which has been in place since February last year, with a mandate to guide the country through the pandemic and lead it out of economic crisis. Concluding his energetic speech, the former president of the European Central Bank, who is credited with saving the euro in 2012, asked the senate: "Are you prepared to restore the pact of trust?"