Government, crisis in the dark: Conte al Quirinale da Mattarella

• Government, crisis in the dark.

  Prime Minister Conte does not rule out the count in the Chamber

• The reactions of the majority: a serious mistake, an incomprehensible choice

• Renzi: the ministers Bellanova and Bonetti and the undersecretary Scalfarotto resigned

• The reactions of the opposition: the government is no more, let's go to the vote

• Crisis diary

• Palazzo Chigi: if Italia viva leaves, it does not return.

  Renzi: tomorrow we decide what to do

• Prime Minister Conte al Quirinale, Mattarella: "Get out of uncertainty soon"

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January 14, 2021

The crisis diary: minute-by-minute developments

The Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, arrived at the Quirinale a few minutes ago.

Convulsed hours about the fate of the government, the premier goes to the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, with reassurances in his pocket, as well as from the M5s, also from the Democratic Party.

"I come from a meeting of the political committee of my party, it is clear that we support the Prime Minister Conte, these are the stakes of our action" said the Minister of Economy Roberto Gualtieri.

"It is inevitable - he added - that there will be a parliamentary transition, it is right that Parliament is the protagonist of these steps where our work will always be aimed at ensuring the government action necessary for the country in such a difficult moment".

The center-right summit, meanwhile, has given the three leaders a mandate to speak by telephone with the Quirinale to ask that Conte appear quickly in Parliament.

The crisis

The Conte bis government comes to an end.

Renzi announces the resignation of the ministers of living Italy, Bellanova and Bonetti, and of the undersecretary Scalfarotto.

The crisis has yet to be officially formalized, but the unknown outlets it may have worried the country and above all the President of the Republic, who asked the premier, and the government majority, for "a quick solution".

The resignations of the two ministers from the ministries of agriculture and the family have different effects from each other from a procedural point of view.

The dicastery of Teresa Bellanova is in fact a ministry with a portfolio, while that of Elena Bonetti is a delegation of the Prime Minister which is entrusted to a minister without a portfolio.

If, therefore, Giuseppe Conte wanted to take on the interim, he would do it only for Agriculture, while for the Family he would only have to withdraw the proxy.

The premier seems oriented not to resign and to go to Parliament.

And there he is called today by the President of the Chamber Roberto Fico, who accepts the request of the opposition married by the majority, and suspends the proceedings in the classroom.

The group leaders of the Chamber and Senate convened in the morning, and at 2 pm a summit of the center-right calling for the resignation of the premier, the floor goes to the parties.

The M5s squares around Conte, compact on the "people's advocate", and excludes the epilogue of the vote.

The Democratic Party sees instead the real risk that the crisis will end with the early vote in June.

Nicola Zingaretti, convenes the political office and seems to want to block the way to the so-called responsible: they are not there, it is the analysis of these hours.

Even those who, in theory, would have opened a solution with a Dem premier (the name of Dario Franceschini has been circulating) seems to have retraced his steps.

To tell the truth, the hypothesis of a government with the same majority and a different premier has not yet completely faded away - with Iv waiting - but, for now, it seems really far away.

Meanwhile, the research continues, with the UDC ready to sell the symbol to circumvent the new regulatory rules on the formation of new groups.

And Clemente Mastella who from outside is a candidate for a direction.

But the Colle was clear: no to "reaping" solutions.

Last night Conte, opening the Council of Ministers, the premier announced that he had informed the Quirinale and accepted the step backwards of Teresa Bellanova and Elena Bonetti.

Tense, he speaks of "grave responsibility" and "considerable damage to the country" produced by a gesture that cannot be diminished.

He says he sought dialogue "up to the last minute" but the land was "strewn with mines".

He does not hide the irritation, nor the willingness to go all the way, with the count in the Chamber. So in the first Council of Ministers without IV, he does not give any sign of turning around, now treating Renzi as an opponent.

The strategy would be to stall, not to resign today, but to take over the interim of the vacant ministries, Agriculture and Family, for the time necessary to approve "fundamental measures".

Only later, when he has the certainty of the numbers, will he go to the public showdown.

In the meantime, he calls his team to witness and the tweets from the ministers M5s, Pd and Leu arrive in unison.

"#AvanticonConte" is the hashtag.

Nicola Zingaretti also tweets it from the Pd: "Now everything is at risk, it's an incomprehensible choice", is his attack on Renzi.

Twenty-four hours to settle the slap immediately, and to allow the majority parties to think about what to do.

And then eventually present himself to the Chambers with a speech that makes a broad appeal to responsibility.

Meanwhile, Iv lives the hours of the post-tear with caution.

No internal revolt is recorded in the evening meeting of parliamentarians with Renzi.

The premier's move is awaited, but the scenario of a rapid solution to the crisis in the majority is discussed as if the Count ter was not yet an option closed: sitting at a table would be possible.

But the conviction of more than one is that we go towards the count in the Chamber. And, if that day ever comes, some goodbyes among the Renzians cannot be excluded.

A decision on how to deal with the Conte crisis - whether to resign to open the attempt of a new government or go to Parliament to verify his majority - must be put on the table in the next few hours.

If he really does choose the showdown in Parliament, the goal could be to get a yes from a large and solid majority, with a broad appeal to support the work of the government.

The only alternative to the responsible card could be Renzi's sudden opening to dialogue.

Remote possibility but not yet impossible.

Then other scenarios open up: from that of the government of national unity, led by a high-profile figure (and in this case the names of Mario Draghi resound and even stronger, in these hours, that of the President Emerita of the Constitutional Court Marta Cartabia ) or the impossibility of finding any majority to support even such a government and the road, at that inevitable point, of early voting.

Meanwhile, the Council of Ministers on the budget gap is scheduled to take place this evening at 20.30.

"My resignation is the space so that this table for redesigning the country, always postponed, finally opens. It cannot be postponed anymore, precisely because we are in crisis we must act, the issue is not Count but the political response".

The resigning minister for Equal Opportunities and the Elena Bonetti Family said on Radio 24. "The majority is there when they support a government project. We decided to go out and resign in an unprecedented way, because few leave their seats , to rebuild a government project for the country that is useful and achievable ".

"This chamber is not and cannot be indifferent to what is happening".

The speaker of the Chamber Roberto Fico says this, accepting the unanimous request of the majority and the opposition, suspends the work of the Chamber of Deputies and soon announces the convocation of the conference of the group leaders "for an orderly path is responsible".

The Assembly was called today to approve the so-called Christmas Day at first reading.

Meanwhile, Fico made official the news, leaked yesterday, of the passage of five former M5S deputies to the component of the Italian Democratic Center in Europe led by Bruno Tabacci.

These are Marco Rizzone, Fabio Berardini, Mara Lapia, Carlo De Girolamo and Antonio

The Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, must report to Parliament on the developments of the crisis.

The majority forces in the Chamber ask for it, adhering to the opposition's request.

"A conference of the group leaders is convened, we are sure that Conte will carry out all the necessary steps, including that he comes to the classroom. We adhere to the request that the opposition colleagues have made responsibly to convene a conference of group leaders", said the president of the deputies of the Pd, Graziano Delrio.

The request was shared by the group leaders of LeU, Federico Fornaro, and of the M5s, Davide Crippa.

"Conte report to Parliament today on what is happening in the majority".

The Fdi group leader Francesco Lollobrigida asked this in the Chamber. "We have not yet understood why he has not yet resigned. Fico immediately convene the conference of the group leaders because the work of this classroom cannot continue in this condition", he concluded.

The work of the Senate classroom has been suspended and will resume in the afternoon.

The Conference of group leaders was also convened in the Senate by President Elisabetta Casellati, after the opposition's request to suspend work and to hear the Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, on the government crisis.

The Democratic Party excludes any government with "the sovereign and nationalist right".

Pd secretary Nicola Zingaretti said this speaking to the political executive of the party. "We have clarified and we must reiterate that for us any government collaboration with the Italian right, sovereign and nationalist is unthinkable. It would be an incomprehensible signal in Italy, but also for the European chancelleries and for European democratic public opinion unacceptable ".

Then he added: "There is a fact that cannot be erased from our analyzes. And at this point it is the political unreliability of Italia Viva".

According to Zingaretti, "it is a present fact and that I believe, and we should take this into consideration, however, as it happened, it undermines stability in any scenario one can imagine an involvement and a new possible restart".

The Democratic Party expresses "great concern" for the situation, because the crisis is a "leap in the dark" for which Iv has taken "responsibility. Deputy Secretary Andrea Orlando said, speaking in front of the headquarters of the party. "We said that attacking this government and the majority would lead to a confusing leap in the dark.

Our appeals were not heeded and unfortunately this happened.

We can only express great concern ".

" A crisis in the dark, with uncertain scenarios and outcomes ". For this" nothing can be ruled out ", including the elections. This was stated by the Minister for European Policies, Enzo Amendola, to the microphones of Radio 24 Il Sole 24 ore. "The results are uncertain - he continued - because it is obvious that a government must have a solid majority in Parliament, that the political forces that express a prime minister must work head-on for part of what are emergencies that the country lives. "Then he added:" The only reality now is that there is a unity around President Giuseppe Conte and on this we intend to move forward "he said, answering the question about possible support from the Pd to a government with a prime minister other than Conte in case the outcome of the crisis reaches this. "The party secretary said so, all the authoritative exponents said so, we will discuss it again this morning - continued the minister -.

What we want to do is give security to the country in a phase that is quite critical due to the effects of Covid. "

In the meantime, the meeting of the Pd Political Office is

postponed

to 13, following the convening of the Conferences of the group leaders of the Chamber and Senate initially called at 11.

"In this dramatic climate of uncertainty, in this stormy sea, there are however solid points.

The first is the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, to whom all our closeness goes for the delicate phase that he will have to manage.

The second is Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, to whom we will be loyal and as the 5 Star Movement we will firmly support.

The third solid point is Europe ". Luigi Di Maio writes it in a post on Facebook." While the country is going through one of the darkest moments in its history, yesterday Matteo Renzi chose to withdraw his ministers, opening yet another crisis of government.

In the year in the Italian presidency of the G20, of the Italian co-presidency of COP26 and above all in the year in which we have to start spending the Marshall Plan of the new millennium, Italy risks being indelibly tainted by a gesture that I consider irresponsible and which, as I had anticipated, definitively divides our paths ", adds

Beppe Grillo reiterates in the clearest way his support for Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, and does so on Facebook, posting a photo of him with the Prime Minister. Playing on the surname, which lends itself to a certificate of solidarity, Grillo uses the hashtag and writes "#ConTe".

"The Movement he just needs to keep the last 48 hours line.

Did Renzi squeak to just take out Conte?

Very well, Conte remains in his place.

Has Renzi left the government?

All right, he'll never go into it again.

Without Ifs and Buts. Meanwhile, these are the two conditions that the political force that took the most votes in 2018 (with an electoral law, I remember, made ad hoc against the M5S) puts on the plate.

And we are compact.

Finally ". So in a post on Fb the exponent M5s Alessandro Di Battista.

" We don't know if there is a government, we asked the premier this, we know what we have seen on TV but formally we do not know anything more "therefore" the Prime Minister either comes to the Senate this afternoon or goes to the President of the Republic this afternoon to clarify the situation. "Matteo Salvini said this to L'aria che tira su La7. "Everything is in the hands of President Mattarella, we hope he helps us to understand."

Now that the government crisis is open, Carlo Bonomi, president of Confindustria in an interview with Corriere della Sera , suggests to politics to get out of the cage of personalism, "it is the real emergency", we must "look reality in the face". In the government "we have good relations with individual ministers" but "this was a very closed government - he explains - there is no m

to the answers given: zero on the Italy 2030 plan that we brought to the General States, zero on the 2030-2050 plan that we presented to the general assembly ".

Now "I hope that there will be a government willing to listen to those who have demonstrated the ability to make the country grow".

The industrialists are very critical of the Recovery Plan: "It has been approved without debate or confrontation. They never questioned us."

As for the substance, "I have not found a vision. There is no sense of which country we want to build".

In the management of the pandemic "it is understandable that at the beginning the system was taken by surprise, but in the following eight months there were many management and implementation errors - he stresses -. The health structure showed many deficiencies, therefore the Mes is to be taken ".