Premier Matteo Renzi vowed to
continue his reform drive in Italy and work to change the EU
after his centre-left Democratic Party's (PD) historic win in
Sunday's European elections.
The election was expected to be a close battle between the
PD and the anti-establishment, Euroskeptic 5-Star Movement of
comedian-cum-politician Beppe Grillo.
Instead the PD claimed its biggest-ever election victory,
winning 40.8% of the vote, almost twice as much as M5S's 21.2%,
while Silvio Berlusconi's opposition centre-right Forza Italia
(FI) party came third with a disappointing 16.8%.
"Now Italy has all the conditions necessary to be able to
change and to invite the European Union to change," Renzi told a
press conference.
Renzi wants to use Italy's six-month presidency of the EU,
which starts in July, to take the union in a new direction so
that it is no longer seen as the champion of austerity and
pointless rules, but fights to boost growth and combat
unemployment.
But he also stressed that to change Europe, "we have to
first to change ourselves".
He added that the result meant there were no more "alibis"
to stop progress with the ambitious programme of institutional
and economic reforms he has embarked after unseating his party
colleague Enrico Letta in February to become Italy's youngest
premier at 39.
"In the derby match between hope and anger, hope won,"
Renzi said referring to the angry campaigning of Grillo, who
wants to destroy the current political system and had predicted
the M5S would win the European elections, triggering the end of
Renzi's political career.
The premier stressed, however, that he did not consider
the result to have endowed him a popular mandate he had
previously, given that he is Italy's third consecutive premier
to come to power though backroom maneuvering rather than as a
direct result of elections.
"It wasn't a referendum on me or the government," he said.
"It's a vote that expresses extraordinary hope. I don't
consider the result to be a personal legitimization".
He also dismissed speculation he could be tempted to call
early national elections to try to ride the wave of the European
vote, saying his executive would run until the end of the
current parliamentary term in 2018.
"The executive will last until 2018 because the Italian
people want to see results, not vote again," he said.
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