ROME —
Former European bank chief Mario Draghi was positioned to lead what could quickly become Italy’s next government after the Italian president concluded Tuesday that squabbling political parties failed in a last-ditch effort to form a new coalition and that the nation could ill afford fresh elections while engulfed in the COVID-19 pandemic.
President Sergio Mattarella told the nation that only two options remained after the “negative outcome” from days of frantic political negotiations to re-compose the centre-left coalition that had formed the recently collapsed government of Giuseppe Conte.
The first was “a new government, able to deal with the grave present emergencies: health, social, economic financial,” said Mattarella, who is head of state. The second, he said, was immediate, early elections, a possibility that deserved careful consideration “because elections represent an exercise in democracy.”
Mattarella decided Italy quickly needed a `’government of high profile, that must not identify with any political formula” and that would be backed by political forces in the current in Parliament. He stopped short of saying who he had in mind for the premiership.
But right after his speech, a presidential palace official announced that the 73-year-old Draghi, who has been credited with saving Europe’s single currency during his tenure as European Central Bank president in 2011-2019, had been summoned to meet with Mattarella at noon Wednesday. That would give Draghi the opportunity to formally accept such a mandate.
The fragile prospects for reviving Conte’s government through a revamped political coalition disintegrated after former Premier Matteo Renzi gave a thumbs-down following days of frantic negotiations. Conte resigned last week after Renzi yanked his ministers from his tiny centrist Italy Alive party to protest what he said was the premier’s bumbling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Conte is now acting in a caretaker capacity.
Mattarella noted that after elections in 2013, it took four months to get a government in place, and after 2018 elections, five months. Repeating that would leave Italy suffering without a government in the “fullness of its functions for months, crucial, decisive, for the fight against the pandemic to utilize European funding and to face the grave social problems,” he said.
“All these concerns are well in the mind of our fellow citizens, who are asking for concrete and rapid answers to their daily problems,” the president said.
Nicknamed “Super Mario? for his work as the European Central Bank’s president during the single currency crisis, Draghi was cited throughout these last weeks of Italy’s political crisis as a possible solution if politicians couldn’t overcome personality and policy clashes for the sake of the nation.
The pandemic has devastated Italy’s long-stagnant economy and left the country with Europe’s second-highest COVID-19 death toll. The government statistical agency ISTAT reported Monday that nearly 450,000 jobs were lost in the last year.
During the last-ditch discussions that failed Tuesday, the parties in what is now Conte’s caretaker government squabbled over European Union pandemic aid and other key policy issues that were blocking formation of a more solid coalition.
Mattarella had given the collapsed coalition parties a few days to see if they could re-combine in a new government with a dependable majority in Parliament.
His call for wide support, even from the opposition for the next government, was swiftly taken up by a lawmaker from the Forza Italia opposition party of Silvio Berlusconi, the media mogul and former centre-right premier. Mara Carafagna said Mattarella’s appeal “for responsibility should spark authentic, profound reflection in whoever loves Italy and Italians and who still keeps the true sense of the world patriotism.”
Earlier, Renzi put all the blame on the failed effort on the other parties, saying, “We take note of the `nyet’ of the colleagues of the ex-coalition,” using the Russian word for “no.”
In turn, the populist 5-Star Movement, which was the main partner in back-to-back Conte governments since he came to power in 2018, contended that all Renzi wanted was more power.
“It’s obvious that the aim was to obtain more (Cabinet) posts. This was his most pressing” goal in provoking the crisis, said Vito Crimi, a 5-Star leader.
Except for Renzi, all the other leaders of the former coalition parties had thrown their public weight behind Conte for a new mandate.
In yanking his support, Renzi contended that Conte was bumbling the challenge of managing how more than 200 billion euros (about $250 billion) in EU funds and loans would be spent to help Italy recover from the pandemic’s damage, especially to the Italian economy.
The 5-Star Movement, which is close to Conte, resisted accepting billions of euros in EU loans aimed at bolstering the health system, aid the populists fear could make Italy beholden to EU dictates such as austerity measures.
Renzi had insisted that Italy should take the health system aid from Brussels.
Largely caught in the cross-fire has been the centre-left Democratic Party, which Renzi led during his 2014-2016 tenure as premier and he broke away from to start Italy Alive shortly after Conte formed his second coalition government in September 2019.
Conte’s first government, which took office in June 2018, partnered the 5-Stars with the right-wing League of Matteo Salvini. That coalition collapsed when Salvini withdrew his support in a failed manoeuvr to gain the premiership for himself. The Democrats, which then included Renzi, replaced Salvini’s forces in Conte’s second government.
Salvini had lobbied Mattarella in vain for early elections.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
