Much of Europe assumed that Italy had taken the first step towards a new dawn when mario draghi he was appointed prime minister on February 13, 2021. However, last Thursday, just a year and a half later, the Draghi era sealed its twilight.
The President of the Council of Ministers tendered his resignation after part of the government coalition will rebel (the 5 Star Movement), abstaining in a vote he considered crucial to staying in office.
President Sergio Mattarella rejected his bid to resign, suggesting that Draghi seek the necessary support next week. addressing legislators and explaining the crisis. But Draghi failed to reach consensus for an alternative coalition and there will be early elections.
Crisis
Europe’s third-largest economy is once again descending into political turmoil. The hope that the prime minister would achieve better public finance and economic growth, in a country that has not seen good years even since before the pandemic (as Argentina marks a negative cycle since 2017), which imposed total closures and crushed commercial areas throughout the country: here the post-lockdown rebound has been more positive than the Italian but as is known, with a skyrocketing inflation.
Y this new crisis comes at the worst time and in the worst possible conditions: there is a war going on and the European Central Bank is days away from coming up with an anti-fragmentation tool, largely to benefit Italy, by tightening spreads on its bonds. One more proof that the Italian political class (as is also the case in Argentina) is unable to look beyond the next election cyclel.
Even in the most difficult hours of the country, Rome could not help but put partisan machinations before the national interest.
As a result, not only has Draghi’s reputation been tarnished, but Italy risks losing its place at the Brussels table, alongside Germany and France, the pillars of the European Union (EU).
It was Draghi’s prestige as former president of the European Central Bank (ECB) that rescued the EU in the midst of the euro crisis, that gave Italy that new continental influence, while the prime minister imposed a sense of a strong discipline after years of deficit. All that is now a mirage, thanks to the Italian political myopia: a cycle similar to the one Argentina runs in Mercosur.
Rival
Giuseppe Contethe former prime minister and leader of the abstentionist Five Star Movement, worked as the catalyst for Draghi’s decision to resign. He justified the current government crisis by arguing that Italy is facing serious economic problems, and that Draghi has not listened to his demands on inequality: thus avoided taking the blame for the fall: the resemblance to the proposals made by the vice president Cristina Fernández and Kirchnerism to President Alberto Fernández is undeniable.
“You can’t be in government and work against it“, they point out in Italy, in a discussion that also seems to be traced to Argentina. Conte and Draghi have deep ideological differences beyond the economic one. Draghi approves the sending of weapons to help Ukraine, but the Five Star Movement prefers to stay out by his harmony with Vladimir Putin: here once again the similarities between the positions of Albertistas and Kirchneristas.
Conte’s thread, however, goes through revive a dying party in the polls (sounds once more), although an election does not guarantee anything in terms of seats. In the meantime, the economic crisis which Conte says he wants to soften as opposed to tightening Draghi, se will be amplified by the turbulence it has created: once again the similarities with the local case.
Before giving up, mario draghi he was reminded that as president of the ECB, he had restored confidence in the euro with three simple words: “I will do what is necessary.” They claimed that he could have done the same for Italy simply by accepting (perhaps the same fate as Alberto Fernandez). It was not the end he expected, but nobody gets a clean exit in Italian politics. And neither in Argentina.
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