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Ex ECB chief Draghi tasked with forming Italy's new gov't

Published : 03 Feb 2021, 23:06

  By Alessandra Cardone, Xinhua
Former chief of European Central Bank (ECB) Mario Draghi speaks to the press at the Palazzo del Quirinale after a meeting with Italian President Sergio Mattarella in Rome, Italy, Feb. 3, 2021. Photo: Pool via Xinhua.

Former president of the European Central Bank (ECB) Mario Draghi was tasked by the Italian head of state with forming the country's next government on Wednesday, reported Xinhua.

The appointment came after Draghi met with President Sergio Mattarella for over one hour at the Quirinale Palace.

The former central banker accepted the mandate to try to build a non-partisan cabinet with the largest possible support in parliament, and above the current fractured political landscape.

"This is a difficult moment," Draghi acknowledged after being appointed.

"Winning over the pandemic, completing the vaccination campaign, providing answers to the citizens' immediate problems, and re-launching the country: these are the challenges we face."

A day earlier, political talks to recompose the center-left coalition supporting former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte's government failed.

Conte had to resign in late January despite surviving two confidence votes in parliament after former premier Matteo Renzi pulled from the cabinet his Italia Viva party, a junior but necessary ally in the coalition based on the Five Star Movement and center-left Democratic Party.

Renzi's decision was mainly due to his disagreement over the way the cabinet was handling the national recovery plan, which is necessary for Italy to receive its 209-billion share of the 750-billion-euro Next Generation EU program.

The national plan has to be submitted to the EU by April.

CRUCIAL MONTHS AHEAD

Acknowledging the failure of the talks, Mattarella late on Tuesday announced he would confer a new mandate to form a "non-partisan government."

He noted that -- although snap elections were one of the two possible ways out of the crisis and "an exercise of democracy" -- Italy could not afford a long campaign and electoral process now.

"It would mean to keep our country with a not fully functional government during crucial months, decisive for the fight against the pandemic, for using the European funds, and for tackling serious social issues," the president explained.

The EU funds would come as a great relief for Italy's economy, which has been severely hit by the coronavirus crisis and contracted by 8.8 percent in 2020, the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) reported on Tuesday.

After being appointed, Draghi stressed the EU's extraordinary resources would provide "the chance to do much for our country, with an eye to the younger generations and to the strengthening of social cohesion."

On the pandemic side, despite a current downward infection trend and the easing of many restrictions, the fight against the COVID-19 was at a crucial turning point.

Italy has the second-highest COVID-19 death record (89,820) in the European continent after the UK, and a total of over 2.58 million cases, according to the Health Ministry's latest data. The vaccination campaign has reached 2.1 million people so far.

DRAGHI'S NEXT STEPS

Having accepted the president's mandate, Draghi will now hold talks with the Senate and the lower house speakers, and then the leaders of all parties in parliament. In his short declaration on Wednesday, he did not mention any time frame for his consultations.

After the talks, anyway, he will have to report back to the president, and only then will it be possible to understand whether his attempt would be successful or not.

Draghi, 73, was governor of the Bank of Italy between 2005 and 2011. He served as chief of the European Central Bank from 2011 to 2019. He is acknowledged for preserving the euro during the worst of the debt crisis in 2012, and for launching the bond-buying Quantitative Easing scheme to support EU member states' economies.