{"id":179062,"date":"2018-05-27T20:09:00","date_gmt":"2018-05-28T01:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/05\/27\/the-fix-is-in\/"},"modified":"2018-05-27T20:09:00","modified_gmt":"2018-05-28T01:09:00","slug":"the-fix-is-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/05\/27\/the-fix-is-in\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fix is In"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 5-Star and the Lega parties won the last election, with a combined 50% of the vote, and they agreed to form a coalition government with Giuseppe Conte as prime minister.
Conte has now ended their attempt to form a government because the Italian President has refused to approve their economy minister<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A standoff over Italy\u2019s future in the eurozone has forced the resignation of the populist prime minister-in waiting, Giuseppe Conte, after the country\u2019s president refused to accept Conte\u2019s controversial choice for finance minister. <\/p>\n

Sergio Mattarella, the Italian president who was installed by a previous pro-EU government, refused to accept the nomination for finance minister of Paolo Savona, an 81-year-old former industry minister who has called Italy\u2019s entry into the euro a \u201chistoric mistake\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have given up my mandate to form the government of change,\u201d Conte told reporters after leaving failed talks with Mattarella. <\/p>\n

Italy<\/a> has been without a government since elections on 4 March ended in a hung parliament. <\/p>\n

The country is now expected to go to the polls again in the autumn. <\/p>\n

The president\u2019s move to quash Savona\u2019s nomination was unprecedented in recent history<\/span><\/b> and exposed a deep divide between Mattarella, who serves as the head of state and is suppose to be politically neutral, and the two populist parties \u2013 the Five Star Movement<\/a> (M5S) and the far-right Lega (formerly the Northern League) \u2013 who have struggled desperately to form a government and support a more antagonistic relationship with Brussels. <\/p>\n

Mattarella defended his decision by saying that naming Savona as finance minister \u2013 which he already said he opposed \u2013 posed a risk for Italian families and citizens, because it created uncertainty in the Italian economy. <\/p>\n

\u201cI asked for that ministry an authoritative political figure from the coalition parties who was not seen as the supporter of a line that could provoke Italy\u2019s exit from the euro,\u201d Mattarella said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe uncertainty over our position within the euro has alarmed Italian and foreign investors who have invested in securities and companies,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

Mattarella said he would evaluate a call by the leaders of the M5S and the Lega for snap elections. He summoned a former official at the International Monetary Fund, Carlo Cottarelli, to the presidential palace on Monday, which was interpreted as a sign that Cottarelli would be asked to form a government of unelected technocrats.<\/p>\n

Mattarella\u2019s move could risk a constitutional crisis.<\/p>\n

Matteo Salvini, the bombastic head of the far-right Lega, angrily denounced the decision to block Savona, his personal choice for finance minister, saying that Mattarella had overstepped his authority and was revealing bias against a qualified individual \u2013 who once worked at the Bank of Italy \u2013 simply because he is anti-euro.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a democracy, if we are still in a democracy, there\u2019s only one thing to do, let the Italians have their say,\u201d Salvini said.<\/p>\n

Luigi Di Maio, who heads the M5S, also criticised the decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this country, you can be a condemned criminal, a tax fraud convict, under investigation for corruption and be a minister \u2026 but if you criticise Europe, you cannot be an economy minister,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Basically, the Italian President said that the fact that the Economy Minister was a Euroskeptic was bad for the bond market, and besides, he really likes the EU and the Euro, so f%$# you.<\/p>\n

There are deep and profound problems with the EU and the Euro Zone, and the conventional thinking will not solve those problems, because it never solves those problems, and the fact that the responses of the Pro EU establishment are increasingly un and anti-democratic in response.<\/p>\n

This will not end well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 5-Star and the Lega parties won the last election, with a combined 50% of the vote, and they agreed to form a coalition government with Giuseppe Conte as prime minister.Conte has now ended their attempt to form a government because the Italian President has refused to approve their economy minister: A standoff over Italy\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[368,375,630,374],"class_list":["post-179062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-corruption","tag-elections","tag-european-union","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179062"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179062\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}