Italy’s Conte fights to form team

Bloomberg

Italy’s novice premier-designate Giuseppe Conte struggled to form a populist government throughout the weekend, stranded between a president who objects to a euroskeptic candidate for the economy ministry, and a coalition ally threatening to force early elections.
Conte, 53, is working on a list of ministers to propose to Sergio Mattarella, 76, the head of state whose task it is to name the government team. The talks were expected to be held later on Sunday, according to an official of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement who declined to be named discussing confidential plans.
Newspaper La Stampa reported earlier that Conte, a law professor at Florence University with no political experience, will try to persuade and reassure Mattarella that economist Paolo Savona, 81, a candidate for the economy ministry, won’t seek a euro-exit or create problems with Brussels. Mattarella’s office said no meeting had yet been scheduled.
Efforts to form a populist government could be jeopardized by a tussle over Savona between the president and Matteo Salvini of the anti-immigrant League, which is Five Star’s junior partner, and lead to early elections possibly in the fall. The populists’ pledges of fiscal expansion and tax cuts, which would defy European Union budget rules, saw the Italy-Germany 10-year yield spread reach the widest since 2014. Savona, a company executive and former industry minister, has come under fire both for repeatedly calling on the government to plan for a possible euro exit, and for his criticism of what he sees as German dominance of Europe.
Mattarella, a former constitutional court judge, insists on his right to name government ministers, without pressure from outsiders.
“Either this government gets started in the next few hours and we start working, or we might as well go and vote again and get an absolute majority,” Salvini told a rally near Bergamo in northern Italy late on Saturday. “Although it would be disrespectful to Italians if this government doesn’t get started because it’s unpleasant to someone in Berlin or Brussels.”
French President Emmanuel Macron was the first leader to voice encouragement to Conte.