Italian Eurosceptics from the Liga party intend to submit to the Senate a resolution on no confidence in the government and insist on holding early parliamentary elections. This was reported on August 9 with reference to a statement by the party Matteo Salvini, the Italian edition of ANSA.

“Too many“ no ”(in particular,“ no ”high-speed rail) is bad for Italy, which needs to restore (economic) growth, and therefore it is necessary to hold elections as soon as possible,” the agency quoted the League as saying.

However, right now the parliament cannot consider the initiative of the League, since from August 8, lawmakers went on vacation, which will last this year until September 9. President Sergio Mattarella has the authority to call deputies for an early session, but it is not yet clear whether he will take this step for an extraordinary vote on a vote of no confidence in the prime minister.

The day before, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte called on Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the League party Matteo Salvini to explain the reasons for the Cabinet’s termination of work to the country's citizens. Thus, the prime minister actually accused Salvini, the head of the Ministry of the Interior since 2018, at the beginning of the political crisis in Italy.

  • Head of the Italian Government Giuseppe Conte
  • Reuters
  • © Remo Casilli

“Yesterday and tonight, Salvini came to me, who informed me of his intention to terminate the activities of the government and go to the vote in order to capitalize the support that the League has,” Conte said in a commentary on the media the day before.

According to the head of government, although Salvini’s note called on parliamentarians to return to work, such appeals are not within the competence of the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. However, as the leader of one of the ruling parties, Salvini must explain to the nation the reasons that prompted him to interrupt the work of the Cabinet.

"Unnatural union"

Before parliament left for the holidays, Matteo Salvini told Giuseppe Conte about the collapse of the ruling coalition, which included the League and the 5 Star Movement, and the need for early parliamentary elections.

The reason for the “League” to leave the coalition was the results of the vote on the construction of the Turin-Lyon highway. Recall, we are talking about a long-standing project for the construction of a high-speed railway that will connect Italy and France. The project has many opponents who warn of the harmful effects of construction on the environment. In particular, the League’s partners in the ruling coalition from the 5 Star Movement party hold such positions.

  • Visit of the Minister of Transport of France to the gallery of the future tunnel Lyon-Turin
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  • © JEAN-PIERRE CLATOT

On August 7, deputies from this party tried to block the implementation of the project, however, their proposal was rejected by a majority vote. Given the fact that the League, led by Matteo Salvini, advocates the need for construction, the efforts of the 5 Star Movement to stop the project were regarded by Salvini as an occasion to announce the collapse of the coalition.

“Today I told Prime Minister Conte: let's go straight to parliament to fix that the majority is gone, as the TAV vote showed, and quickly give the floor to the Italians,” said a note addressed to Prime Minister Matteo Salvini on August 8 Minister Giuseppe Conte.

Speaking on the same day at a rally in the resort town of Sabaudia, Salvini announced serious disagreements within the coalition.

“For eleven months we have been working on laws that serve the good of Italians. But in the last two or three months, something has broken, ”the politician said.

In fact, the friction between the League and the 5 Star Movement began long ago. Back in April, the leader of the 5 Star Movement, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Mayo, accused the Liga of a possible split in the coalition and its readiness to negotiate with the party of ex-Prime Minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi to create a new government.

In June, the ruling parties entered into a dispute over the budget. Closer to a greater extent to the left-wing rhetoric of the 5-star policies, they could not but condemn the idea of ​​moving to the flat taxation scale that Salvini put forward. The 5 Star Movement is confident that such a move will not only hit the interests of the poorest segments of the population, but will also cost the Italian budget € 40 billion of lost taxes.

However, then the coalition resisted, and in July, Luigi Di Mayo invited Matteo Salvini to meet to discuss the differences. The reason for this meeting was given by Salvini himself, who the day before had declared the risk of collapse of the coalition if the partners blocked the initiatives of the League, and expressed indignation at the fact that representatives of 5 stars supported the candidacy of Ursula von der Leyen for the post of head of the European Commission . Salvini said that in this way the “Movement” betrayed the interests of Italians, whose views on migration do not coincide with the views of the former Minister of Defense of Germany.

According to experts, the collapse of the ruling coalition of Eurosceptics is only a matter of time. As Elena Maslova, assistant professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations and International Relations at MGIMO, explained in a RT commentary, the disagreement over the construction of the Turin-Lyon highway is just an excuse, not a reason for the government to stop working. According to the expert, in general, political crises of this kind are very characteristic of Italy.

  • Matteo Salvini
  • Reuters
  • © Alessandro Garofalo

“After the Second World War, a few Italian governments worked their entire term. More often, the work of each new Cabinet ended ahead of schedule. Initially, this was due to the fact that after a period of fascism, party pluralism was encouraged in the country. The coalition created last year from the very beginning was very loose, the League and the 5 Star Movement converged on a situational basis, but in reality they are very multidirectional forces, ”Maslova said.

A similar point of view is shared by the head of the department of social and political studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladimir Schweitzer.

“The collapse of the coalition was expected because the union of the left and right was unnatural,” the expert explained in an interview with RT. - Disagreements began immediately: on migration issues, and on social policy issues, and on the economic agenda. The parties acted as opponents during the May European Parliament elections, which, by the way, supporters of Salvini won in Italy. "

New big game

Recall, the center-right coalition led by the right-wing party “League” (formerly “League of the North.” - RT ) and populists from the “5 Star Movement” won the most votes in the March 2018 parliamentary elections. Right-centerists received a total of 37% of the vote, of which 17% went directly to the League. "Five Star" received 33% of the vote. Entrepreneur Luigi Di Mayo became the leader of the Movement shortly before the election, when during the primarization he was chosen as a candidate for prime minister if the party wins. At the same time, the Democratic Party, which ruled before the election, received less than 20% of the vote and refused to participate in any coalitions, having left the opposition.

At first, the only thing that united the League and the 5 Star Movement was a criticism of EU policies, both parties have long gained a reputation for Euro-skeptics. However, this was not enough for a lasting alliance - politicians could not agree on the creation of a coalition for three months. In the end, they managed to reach a compromise - a non-partisan lawyer, associate professor of the University of Florence Giuseppe Conte, was nominated as prime minister.

  • Reuters
  • © Yara Nardi

Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Mayo agreed to be satisfied with the posts of deputy prime ministers and ministerial portfolios. Salvini headed the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and Di Mayo - the Ministry of Economic Development, Labor and Social Policy. After the League and the 5 Star Movement agreed to form a coalition, the center-right political alliance, in which the League went to the polls, broke up, and the leader of the Forward Italy Party Silvio Berlusconi went to the opposition.

Now the forces that remained last year outside the ruling coalition can count on revenge, experts say.

“It is possible that the early elections will play into the hands of just the third political forces, for example, the Democratic Party or the Berlusconi Party“ Forward, Italy! ”, Which may even conclude an interim agreement,” said Vladimir Schweitzer.

A similar assumption was made by Elena Maslova. According to the expert, although Matteo Salvini has a rather high rating now, the Democratic Party of Italy, as well as political centenarians such as former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, can very well hope to strengthen their positions by taking advantage of the collapse of the ruling coalition.

Speaking about the reasons pushing Matteo Salvini to terminate the coalition agreement, experts call, first of all, the politician’s popularity growth over the past year, as well as the victory of the “League” in the recent elections to the European Parliament. Now Salvini intends to replay in his favor the combination of political forces that developed last year in the country, initiating early elections, said Elena Maslova.

“The competition between Di Mayo and Salvini has not disappeared, and now the League leader has decided to go all-in - he wants to hurry up with the early elections by making a political march, while his rating is ahead of the competition. In fact, he began working with the electorate a long time ago, preparing for these early elections, ”summed up Maslova.