Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta has announced he will tender his resignation to Italian President Giorgio Napolitano tomorrow. The dramatic development comes after Italy's centre-left leader Matteo Renzi addressed a meeting of his Democratic Party earlier today. A few minutes before Renzi took the floor, it emerged Letta would not be attending the meeting - a clear sign of where things were going.The three key points of Renzi's speech were:
- Letta has done a great job, but it's time to give way to a new government (that Renzi will lead);
- Snap elections now would be too risky, primarily because the electoral law hasn't been changed yet;
- The new government will aim to stay in office until 2018 - when the current parliamentary term expires.
So what happens next? If you're regular readers of this blog, you should know the drill by now - but just in case:
- Letta will meet President Napolitano tomorrow, and will hand in his resignation;
- Napolitano will then have to consult all the political groups holding seats in the Italian parliament. The timetable is usually announced after the Prime Minister resigns, but we reckon it could happen over the weekend;
- After the talks, Napolitano should give Renzi the mandate to form the new government - presumably early next week;
- After holding his own round of talks with other political leaders, Renzi should then unveil the list of ministers (we'd expect a rather substantial reshuffle from the current cabinet), and should be sworn in;
- After being sworn in, Renzi will have to face a vote of confidence in both houses of the Italian parliament - which, as things stand now, should be a mere formality.
5 comments:
How can Renzi become Prime Minister if he is not even a member of parliament? Does he need to be anointed as a life senator first?
In Italia, se si va a fare una passeggiata, hai un nuovo Presidente del Consiglio quando torni a casa.
@anonymus
Italy and in effect most other countries as well have a different system. This is not the UK.
Partly caused by the fact that it has no de facto 2 party system as the UK, partly also for other often historical reasons.
Wonder how long the markets will accept this charade.
Simply looks that every next time the new guy is less competent and in the mean time it is used as an excuse to do nothing. Looks like a complete joke anyway but also it is making clear that Italian politics is so weak that structural reforms are simply an illusion.
And basically that was known when the Monti strategy started to falter because of lack of political support. And things have gone from bad to worse since then and this is another chapter in that process.
It is hopeful that this will hurry on the final collapse of the EU in Italy, the brightest hope for the death of the monster we have at the moment whilst the traitorous British politicians and media continue to cooperate and connive.
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