Sell-outs Conte and Di Maio grin from ear to ear as they pose with their new colleagues from Italy's unelected pro-EU establishment liberal left party
Italian President Sergio Mattarella on Thursday
swore in Italy's new coalition government backed by the anti-establishment
5-Star Movement (M5S) and the center-left Democratic Party (PD). The swearing-in ceremony took place in a large ballroom in the 16th century Quirinale presidential palace in Rome.
"I swear to be loyal to the republic and to respect its constitution and laws and to carry out my duties in the sole interest of the nation," Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said. The same words were spoken by the government's 21 ministers.
The ruling coalition, known as "yellow-red" due to the colors normally associated with the M5S and PD, also comprises the smaller leftist Free and Equals (LeU) party. The government will face parliamentary votes of confidence next week.
Conte was brought in by Salvini as an independent choice for PM so that neither Lega Nord nor M5S would lead the govt. With Salvini sidelined, Conte is now PM over an unelected govt!
Cabinet make upThe average age of the ministers is 37, a record low. In the cabinet, there are seven women, 10 members of the M5S, nine of the PD, one LeU representative, plus one technocrat.
One of the first decisions the new government is expected to take is the appointment of former Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni as Italy's representative in the new European Commission.
Conte named M5S leader Luigi Di Maio as foreign minister. At just 33, Di Maio will be the youngest foreign minister in Italy's history.
Luciana Lamorgese, a former Milan security chief and top civil servant with no political affiliation will serve as the new interior minister, replacing far-right League leader Matteo Salvini.
Government instability over?The new government marks a fresh start for the eurozone's third-largest economy as the far-right falls from power.
Conte's first, 14-month-old government collapsed last month after the League's Salvini withdrew his euroskeptic, anti-migrant party from the right-left populist coalition in a foiled attempt to trigger early elections.
Salvini's League and another far-right party, the Brothers of Italy (FdI) are planning street protests against the new executive. FdI is holding the first on Monday, outside the lower house of parliament.
Italy has frequent government crises. The new executive is the 66th in 73 years of republican history, with its predecessors lasting on average about 13 months.
Comment: And what was the very first thing this government did?
Repealed Salvini's ban on accepting African migrants from people-smugglers - the very thing that made him so popular in Italy, and almost certain of winning the premiership in snap elections, until the 'dictatorship of the parliamentariat' conspired with the banksters and Brussels to concoct a govt out of assorted also-rans in the last general election in 2018...
The Guardian, delighted,
reports:
Eighty-two migrants have disembarked in Italy, marking a break from the era of hardline immigration measures pushed by the former interior minister, Matteo Salvini.
On Saturday night, the migrants were transferred from the Norwegian-flagged rescue boat Ocean Viking, operated by the French charities SOS Méditerranée and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), to a coastguard vessel before being taken ashore on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa.
The decision follows an agreement with other EU member states, coordinated by the European Commission, and most of those onboard will be relocated to other countries, including France, Germany, Portugal and Luxembourg.
It is the first time this year that Rome has allowed passengers to disembark from an NGO rescue vessel.
Italy's new government, which won a vote of confidence in the senate on Tuesday - the final step needed to exercise its full powers - intends to draw a line under a crisis sparked by Salvini, the far-right leader of the League.
It would never win a vote of confidence from the people, and these chancers know it.
Giuseppe Conte, on his second mandate as prime minister, has promised to revise the previous government's anti-immigration policies, which provide for the closure of seaports to rescue vessels carrying migrants, the seizure of NGO boats and fines for ships that bring asylum seekers to Italy without permission. He has formed a coalition between the centre-left Democratic party (PD) and anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S).
Meanwhile, Rome announced that a new plan to end the painful process of "haggling over each boatload of rescued migrants" is being discussed among EU member states. The idea is to relocate the asylum seekers to other EU countries before they land in Italy.
The plan has gained immediate support from Berlin and Paris.
The German interior minister, Horst Seehofer, said that in the future his country would be ready to take 25% of rescued migrants landing in Italy. "That won't be too much for our immigration policy," he told Süddeutsche Zeitung.
"We now need to agree on a genuine temporary European mechanism," the French interior minister, Christophe Castaner, tweeted on Saturday.
EU interior ministers announced they will meet in Malta on 23 September to try to formalise the temporary deal, ahead of a summit in Luxembourg next October.
"This is the end of Salvini's propaganda over the skin of desperate people at sea and the beginning of good international relations with other countries," Dario Franceschini, Italy's minister for culture and leader of the PD party, said on Twitter.
Good international relations
with the liberal elites of other countries, more like.
"The new government has opened again its seaports to migrants," replied Salvini, who is now forced to watch from the opposition benches. "The new ministers must hate our country. Italy is back to being Europe's refugee camp."
It's clear at this point that the EU is deliberately sending ships to Africa to pick up male migrants for the express purpose of depositing them throughout Europe. Now that the FPO in Austria and Lega in Italy have been knocked out of government, it's full-steam ahead with The Plan...
Comment: And what was the very first thing this government did?
Repealed Salvini's ban on accepting African migrants from people-smugglers - the very thing that made him so popular in Italy, and almost certain of winning the premiership in snap elections, until the 'dictatorship of the parliamentariat' conspired with the banksters and Brussels to concoct a govt out of assorted also-rans in the last general election in 2018...
The Guardian, delighted, reports: It would never win a vote of confidence from the people, and these chancers know it. Good international relations with the liberal elites of other countries, more like. It's clear at this point that the EU is deliberately sending ships to Africa to pick up male migrants for the express purpose of depositing them throughout Europe. Now that the FPO in Austria and Lega in Italy have been knocked out of government, it's full-steam ahead with The Plan...