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      Mario Draghi Is Asked to Form Government in Italy

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMario Draghi Gets Nod to Form New Government and Guide Italy Out of CrisisThe sudden ascent of the man credited with helping save the euro was a pipe dream for Italians frustrated with a coalition paralyzed by ideological schisms and incompetence.Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank, knows well the machinery of government at both the European and Italian level. Credit…Andrew Medichini/Associated PressFeb. 3, 2021Updated 8:43 a.m. ETROME — Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank who is largely credited with helping to save the euro, accepted a mandate from Italy’s president on Wednesday to try and form a new unity government that would guide the country out of the pandemic and through economic recovery.“To overcome the pandemic, to complete the vaccine campaign, to offer answers to the daily problems of the citizens, to relaunch the country are the challenges we face,” Mr. Draghi said after meeting with President Sergio Mattarella for more than an hour at the Quirinal Palace. Italy, he said, faced a “difficult moment.” And he said he had accepted Mr. Mattarella’s appeal because the emergency “requires an answer equal to the seriousness of the situation.”Until as recently as Tuesday, the idea of Mr. Draghi replacing Giuseppe Conte as prime minister remained a pipe dream for the many Italians frustrated with a governing coalition that seemed paralyzed by ideological schisms and incompetence, especially as the coronavirus pandemic raged and economic devastation set in.But on Tuesday evening, Mr. Mattarella summoned Mr. Draghi and appealed to “all the political forces in the Parliament” to support a “high profile government” to meet the historic moment.He made it clear Mr. Conte’s tenure was over and the new players, potentially political leaders proposed by the parties supporting Mr. Draghi or an all-star cast of politically unaffiliated economists, judges and scientists, was ready to take the stage.Italy’s stock market rallied on Wednesday in response to the news that Mr. Draghi had been lined up to lead the Italian government. He immediately began consultations with party leaders that will continue in the coming days in an effort to form a new Italian government.“I am confident that from the exchange with the parties and the groups in the Parliament and from the dialogue with the social forces,” Mr. Draghi said on Wednesday, “there will emerge unity and the capacity to give a responsible answer to the president’s appeal.”Mr. Draghi is himself no political novice. He has served in past Italian governments, was a director of Italy’s treasury and knows well the machinery of government at both the European and Italian level.His name has been mentioned for years as a potential candidate to replace Mr. Mattarella as Italy’s head of state in 2022. But now Mr. Mattarella himself has called on Mr. Draghi, whom he has publicly praised in the past, and brought him directly into the fray.“Now everyone of good will must heed the call of President Mattarella and support the government of Mario Draghi,” Matteo Renzi, the wily former prime minister who engineered the collapse of Mr. Conte’s government by pulling his small party’s support in Parliament. “Now is the time for sobriety.”A former prime minister, Matteo Renzi, triggered the previous government’s collapse.Credit…Pool photo by Alessandro SerranoParty leaders on the right and left quickly expressed support for Mr. Draghi after it became clear that Mr. Mattarella would ask him to form a government.Among them were leaders who had made great shows of their loyalty to Mr. Conte. Nicola Zingaretti, the leader of the Democratic Party that Mr. Renzi once led, released a statement that on the one hand referred to the government crisis as a “disaster provoked by the irresponsible choice” of Mr. Renzi, but he then welcomed Mr. Mattarella’s decision. “We will stand ready to discuss the common good for the country.”The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Giuseppe Conte to Resign as Italian Prime Minister

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesVaccine InformationTimelineWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyItaly’s Prime Minister to Quit, Adding Political Chaos to PandemicPrime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s government is likely to collapse, leaving Italy in an uncertain political situation with Covid-19 infections still very high.Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy, center, addressing the Senate in Rome on Tuesday.Credit…Alessandro Di Meo/EPA, via ShutterstockJason Horowitz, Gaia Pianigiani and Jan. 25, 2021Updated 5:15 p.m. ETPrime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy will offer his resignation on Tuesday, his office said on Monday evening, likely leading to the collapse of Italy’s teetering government and plunging the country deeper into political chaos as it faces a still serious coronavirus epidemic and a halting vaccine rollout.Mr. Conte’s resignation will put Italy back in the familiar situation of government instability, but in extraordinary times, with tens of millions of Italians struggling to stay healthy and get by under pandemic restrictions and a deep, global recession. The coronavirus has killed more than 85,000 Italians, one of the world’s highest death tolls. The government, which was making slow but steady progress in vaccinating public health workers, has hit a speed bump and threatened to sue Pfizer for a shortfall in vaccine doses.What will happen after Mr. Conte offers his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella remains unclear. Mr. Conte could remain in charge, heading a new governing coalition with a different lineup of parties, but the possibilities also include a more thorough reorganization under a different prime minister, or even elections to choose a new Parliament.Mr. Conte, who is serving his second consecutive stint as Prime Minister — first as the head of an alliance of right-wing nationalists and populists, and then as the leader of a coalition of populists and the center-left establishment — desperately wants to stay in power.But last week, Matteo Renzi, a wily former prime minister and critic of Mr. Conte, unexpectedly pulled his small center-left party out of the government, depriving it of majority support in the Senate. Mr. Conte, who leads a coalition of the populist Five Star Movement and the center-left Democratic Party, has been unable to attract enough new support in Parliament to replace the votes Mr. Renzi took away.Mr. Renzi said he withdrew from the coalition to protest Mr. Conte’s management of the epidemic, his lack of vision in deciding where to allocate hundreds of billions of euros in recovery funds that Italy is set to receive from the European Union, and his undemocratic methods in icing out Parliament by relying on unelected task forces.A food distribution site in Milan earlier this month. The pandemic has devastated Italy’s economy.Credit…Alessandro Grassani for The New York TimesBut many here instead saw Mr. Renzi as performing a complicated political maneuver designed to take revenge on his enemies and gain more influence in the government, perhaps even in a third consecutive government led by Mr. Conte.Mr. Mattarella, the Italian president, is imbued with extraordinary powers during a government crisis and has several options for resolving the crisis.He could, in theory, ask the current coalition to continue, but it is seen as all but certain that he will accept that the government has collapsed. He could task Mr. Conte with forming a new government, which would essentially require the support, and appeasement, of Mr. Renzi’s party, with or without him. That would lead to what was in essence a glorified cabinet reshuffle.On Monday night, a third Conte government seemed, at least publicly, to be the governing coalition’s first choice.Nicola Zingaretti, the leader of the Democratic Party, which Mr. Renzi once led, said in a Twitter post Monday evening that he was “with Conte for a new government.” The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      European leaders hail 'new dawn' for ties with US under Biden

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      European leaders have voiced relief at Joe Biden’s inauguration, hailing a “new dawn” for Europe and the US, but warned that the world has changed after four years of Donald Trump’s presidency and transatlantic ties will be different in future.“This new dawn in America is the moment we’ve been awaiting for so long,” Ursula von der Leyen, the European commission president, told MEPs. “Once again, after four long years, Europe has a friend in the White House.”The head of the EU’s executive arm said Biden’s swearing-in was “a demonstration of the resilience of American democracy”, and the bloc stood “ready to reconnect with an old and trusted partner to breathe new life into our cherished alliance”.But Von der Leyen said relief should not lead to illusion, since while “Trump may soon be consigned to history, his followers remain”.Charles Michel, the president of the European council, also said the US had changed. Transatlantic relations had “greatly suffered” and the world had grown “more complex, less stable and less predictable”, said Michel, who chairs summits between the EU’s 27 heads of state and government.“We have our differences and they will not magically disappear. America seems to have changed, and how it’s perceived in Europe and the rest of the world has also changed,” he said. Europeans “must take our fate firmly into our own hands”.A study this week showed that while many Europeans welcomed Biden’s election victory, more people than not felt that after four years of Trump the US could not be trusted, and a majority believed Biden would not be able to mend a “broken” country or reverse its decline on the world stage.The EU has invited Biden to a summit and top-level Nato meeting when he is ready, with Michel called for “a new founding pact” to boost multilateral cooperation, combat Covid, tackle climate change and aid economic recovery.The German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said he was “greatly relieved” at Biden’s inauguration, hailing “a good day for democracy”. He said democracy under the Trump administration had faced “tremendous challenges and endured … and proved strong”.Steinmeier said the transfer of power to Biden brought with it “the hope that the international community can work together more closely”, and he said Germany was looking forward “to knowing we once more have the US at our side as an indispensable partner”.However, he said that “despite the joy of this day”, the last four years had shown that “we must resolutely stand up to polarisation, protect and strengthen our democracies, and make policy on the basis of reason and facts.”Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, said his country was “looking forward to the Biden presidency, with which we will start working immediately.” He said the two countries had a strong common agenda, including “effective multilateralism, climate change, green and digital transition and social inclusion.”The Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said Biden’s victory represented “the victory of democracy over the ultra-right and its three methods – massive deception, national division, and abuse, sometimes violent, of democratic institutions.”Five years ago, Sánchez said, the world had believed Trump to be “a bad joke. But five years later we realised he jeopardised nothing less than the world’s most powerful democracy.”Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, who has faced criticism for his close relationship with Trump, said he was looking forward to working closely with Biden, citing a host of policy areas in which he hoped to collaborate.“In our fight against Covid and across climate change, defence, security, and in promoting and defending democracy, our goals are the same and our nations will work hand in hand to achieve them,” Johnson said in a statement.The former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev called for Russia and the US to repair their strained ties. “The current condition of relations between Russia and the US is of great concern,” he said in an interview with the state-run news agency Tass. “But this also means that something has to be done about it in order to normalise relations. We cannot fence ourselves off from each other.”Among the US’s more outspoken foes, Iran, which has repeatedly called on Washington to lift sanctions imposed over its nuclear drive, did not miss the chance to celebrate Trump’s departure.“A tyrant’s era came to an end and today is the final day of his ominous reign,” said the president, Hassan Rouhani. “We expect the Biden administration to return to law and to commitments, and try in the next four years, if they can, to remove the stains of the past four years.”Biden’s administration has said it wants the US back in the landmark Iran nuclear accord from which Trump withdrew, providing Tehran returns to strict compliance.The Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, said the military alliance hoped to strengthen transatlantic ties under the new president, adding that the world faced “global challenges that none of us can tackle alone”. More

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      End of Trump era deals heavy blow to rightwing populist leaders worldwide

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      As the Donald Trump era draws to a close, many world leaders are breathing a sigh of relief. But Trump’s ideological kindred spirits – rightwing populists in office in Brazil, Hungary, Slovenia and elsewhere – are instead taking a sharp breath.The end of the Trump presidency may not mean the beginning of their demise, but it certainly strips them of a powerful motivational factor, and also alters the global political atmosphere, which in recent years had seemed to be slowly tilting in their favour, at least until the onset of coronavirus. The momentous US election result is further evidence that the much-talked-about “populist wave” of recent years may be subsiding.For Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, who has yet to recognise Joe Biden’s victory, Trump’s dismissal struck close to home. “He was really banking on a Trump victory … Bolsonaro knows that part of his project depends on Trump,” said Guilherme Casarões, a political scientist from Getulio Vargas Foundation in Brazil.As the reality of a Trump-free future sunk in last Thursday, Bolsonaro reportedly sought to lighten the mood in the presidential palace, telling ministers he now had little choice but to hurl his pro-Trump foreign policy guru, Filipe Martins, from the building’s third-floor window.The election result represented a blow to Bolsonarismo, a far-right political project modelled closely on Trumpism that may now lose some of its shine. And on the world stage the result means Brazil has lost a key ally, even if critics say the relationship brought few tangible benefits. It brings an end to what Eliane Cantanhêde, a prominent political commentator, called Bolsonaro’s “megalomaniacal pipedream” of spearheading an international rightwing crusade. More

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      Coronavirus live news: Europe fatalities approach 100,000 as China reports no daily deaths

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      Saudia Arabia religious body urges all Muslims to pray at home during Ramadan; Spanish PM seeks lockdown extension Trump warns China as Europe’s death toll approaches 100,000 Anger in Sweden as elderly pay price for coronavirus strategy Don’t bet on vaccine to protect us, says world health expert UK coronavirus updates – live See all […] More

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      Europe's coronavirus numbers offer hope as US enters 'peak of terrible pandemic'

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      Italy, Spain and France report falling numbers as Americans see death toll approach 10,000 Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage Medical staff from La Princesa hospital react as neighbours applaud from their balconies in Madrid, as Spain PM calls for a ‘Marshall Plan’ to help Europe recover from coronavirus. Photograph: Sergio Pérez/Reuters […] More