The government crisis in Italy is not over.

It's sort of frozen until the middle of next week.

Although the metaphor may be out of place given the current maximum temperatures of more than 40 degrees in Rome.

In any case, Prime Minister Mario Draghi has no heat over the weekend.

After the most turbulent week of his 17-month tenure, there are no official appointments on the agenda.

By all accounts, Draghi will be spending the time at his estate in Città della Pieve, in central Italy's Umbria region.

Matthias Rub

Political correspondent for Italy, the Vatican, Albania and Malta based in Rome.

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On Monday, Draghi will travel to Algiers with a large delegation.

The visit to Algeria is - like actually every political action and walk these days - in connection with the war in Ukraine.

Like Germany, Italy was dependent on Moscow's gas supplies before the Russian invasion of Ukraine: around 40 percent of Rome's natural gas needs were covered by imports from Russia.

Draghi has to prove his negotiating skills

Draghi and his cabinet reacted faster to the new energy policy and geostrategic situation than the government in Berlin.

From March onwards, the head of government himself, his ministers and the heads of the semi-public Italian energy companies swarmed out in all directions to find new gas suppliers.

And they found what they were looking for: in Egypt and Azerbaijan, in Congo and Turkey, in Qatar and also in Algeria.

Of course, the gas from Africa and Asia doesn't flow immediately, but Rome received more than mere declarations of intent from its new energy partners.

The plans for exploiting their own natural gas fields in the Adriatic were also pulled out of the drawer.

And the existing three LNG terminals – two on land and one floating – could be expanded relatively quickly.

Italy has not had to declare a gas emergency so far and seems reasonably prepared for the winter.

The visit of Draghi and his delegation to Algeria is likely to lead to tough negotiations.

The Algerian gas producers recently demanded significant price increases, but the Italian energy giant Eni does not want to hear about renegotiations of existing contracts.

In Algiers, Draghi will once again have to prove his proven negotiating skills.

He must not alienate his partners and at the same time assert national interests.

At the behest of President Sergio Mattarella, Draghi will explain the reasons for his resignation offer in the Chamber of Deputies on Wednesday.

Mattarella had rejected Draghi's resignation on Thursday evening and thus referred the search for a way out of the government crisis back to parliament.

It is not quite clear whether Draghi wants to convince the members of the larger parliamentary chamber to vote for him again.