Italy has a new government, almost
three months after the March 4 general election, with the
swearing in of law professor and political novice Giuseppe
Conte's 5-Star Movement (M5S)/League executive.
The new "government of change" features 18 ministers, five
of them women.
The government rests on an alliance and government contract
between anti-establishment M5S leader Luigi Di Maio and
anti-migrant Euroskeptic League leader Matteo Salvini.
Both will be deputy premiers and hold key ministries:
Salvini at interior where he will implement a promised crackdown
on undocumented migrants, and Di Maio at a new joint industry
and labour ministry where he will roll out a basic income for
job seekers and poor families.
New Labour Minister Di Maio said Friday that "now we will
start work to create work".
He said "it's time to get the country started again, to put
aside the Fornero (pension reform), to institute the basic
income and minimum wage. And we will do it".
New Interior Minister Salvini said new EU Minister Paolo
Savona will try to "renegotiate certain EU rules."
Salvini also said he would find "convergence" with the
Catholic Church on his planned crackdown on undocumented
migrants.
"I have started to cultivate useful and numerous relations
with various exponents of the Catholic world," said the
anti-migrant League leader.
"We'll work together, we'll amaze you, we will decidedly find
convergences".
He said "there is much more closeness than distance with them
because (migrant) reception, within the limits and rules and
possibilities, is an interest of all I think".
On the campaign trail Salvini vowed to expel 500,000
undocumented migrants and set up detention centres in all
Italian towns.
Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi said that he was
optimistic about the country's prospects as he arrived at the
presidential palace for the swearing-in of the new government.
"We are a country that's recovering fully from the
difficulties of the great economic crisis, which hit the whole
world," he said.
"We'll do a good job".
Moavero, former EU minister in the Monti and Letta
governments, is expected to keep tabs on Savona who was
initially rejected by Mattarella because of his anti-euro and
anti-Germany views, and replaced as economy minister by a less
Euroskeptic economist, Giovanni Tria.
Tria said Friday evening: "No political force wants Italy out
of the euro".
Moavero said "we will work united and motivated all
together".
Asked if he would be able to "keep in the ranks" party
leaders Di Maio and Salvini, he replied "we are not a military
government".
Mattarella said that "Italy is at a moment of passage of
tasks and responsibilities: I issue strong wishes for the new
government and a thank you to the one that has just ended its
activities", referring to Poalo Gentiloni.
Mattarella said Italy means to "avoid conflicts of all kinds"
and have "an ever more positive and protagonist's role" in
Europe.
He said that "the framework of the republican institutions
has always shown it is able to allow Italy to be able to face
without hesitation problems and major challenges that have
presented themselves. The very exchange between political
forces, sometimes harsh, has always been translated into the
attitude of not reducing to a conflict per se, and rather into
the the ambition of assuring for Italy more secure and stronger
prospects for development".
The Milan stock exchange's FTSE Mib index rose 1.49% to
22,109 points on Friday with bank stocks leading the way as
markets hailed Conte's arrival at the helm of a political
government, ending long uncertainty.
The spread between Italy's 10-year BTP bond and the German
Bund plunged to 218 basis points, with a yield of 2.56%, in
early trading at the end of the political deadlock that
following the March 4 general election. It eventually closed on
226 points with a yield of 2.64%.
The spread, an important measure of investor confidence and
of Italy's borrowing costs, closed at 241 points on Thursday.
The spread between the two-year BTP and its German equivalent
also fell sharply, dropping to 117 points with a yield of 0.51%.
The spread on the two-year bond hit 343 points, the highest
level since 2012, at the peak of the institutional crisis three
days ago.
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