(ANSAmed) - ROME, JAN 12 - The anti-establishment 5-Star
Movement (M5S) and the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) on
Tuesday warned ex-premier Matteo Renzi against plunging Premier
Giuseppe Conte's coalition government into crisis.
Ministers from Renzi's centrist Italia Viva (IV) party may
resign after a cabinet meeting later on Tuesday to approve the
government's Recovery Plan.
Renzi has been at odds with Conte for weeks about the
government's programme on how to spend some 209 billion euros
Italy will get in grants and low-interest loans from the EU's
COVID-19 Recovery Fund.
Renzi has blasted the plan as lacking ambition while also saying
IV's problems with the government go beyond this issue,
including the failure to take up the option of getting 37
billion in cash from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) for
a national health system pushed to the limit by COVID-19.
"A government crisis is inexplicable and not just because we are
in the middle of a pandemic and we must pass a decree giving aid
(to businesses affected by restrictions)," Foreign Minister Di
Maio, who is a former leader of the M5S and remains an
influential figure within it, told RAI television.
"It is also inexplicable because Italy will be president of the
G20 this year and there will be a global health conference in
Italy.
"A crisis is not something the Italian people are interested in
and they are not interested abroad either".
PD leader Nicola Zingaretti echoed those remarks.
"The PD continues to ask for a revamp of the government,"
Zingaretti, who is also Lazio governor, told Sky television.
"But it is one thing to ask to reinforce it, it is another to
bring it down.
"Provoking a crisis would not be understood by 99% of the
Italian people.
"It's a serious political mistake and I make an appeal for good
sense".
He said that if IV withdraws its ministers Conte will have to
assess the situation with President Sergio Mattarella.
"I hope they realise that, in this way, we would enter a tunnel
that no one knows the way out of," Zingaretti said.
"If you smash a vase you can't put the pieces back together"
It is uncertain what an eventual government crisis would lead
to.
There is speculation Conte could resign and form what would be
his third government after a cabinet reshuffle, with the premier
being flanked by deputy premiers from the parties supporting the
executive.
But this executive may not have enough parliamentary support
without IV, especially in the Senate.
Conte's first government, which lasted from June 2018 until
August 2019, was backed by the M5S and Matteo Salvini's
right-wing League party.
The current government is supported by the left-wing LeU group,
in addition to IV, the PD and the M5S.
It is also possible that early elections will be necessary.
Conte would find it "impossible" to form a new executive with
Renzi's IV party if it causes a "government crisis in the full
swing of a pandemic" premier's office sources said Tuesday
(ANSAmed).
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