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Bloomberg
As Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte prepared to present his budget in Brussels, one of the main powers behind Italy’s government, League leader Matteo Salvini, may be looking beyond the crisis a failed spending plan could trigger and toward new elections early next year, la Repubblica reported.
With both Salvini and fellow Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio of the Five Star Movement refusing to agree to a 2019 deficit below 2.1 percent, Conte’s mission to Brussels is seen within the government as a “certain defeat,†Repubblica said, with an excessive deficit procedure from the European Union to follow.
The resulting crisis could play right into Salvini’s hands. Although his League is technically the junior member of the governing coalition, polls show it overtaking Five Star as Italy’s most popular party.
Salvini and Di Maio have hardened their position towards Brussels in the wake of promises for increased spending by French President Emmanuel Macron as he attempts to defuse the Yellow Vest protests sweeping his country. Italy has complained that Paris gets special treatment when the Commission assesses budgets.