Courtesy of Mish.
In Italy, former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi waged a full frontal attack on technocrat prime minister Mario Monti, Germany, Angela Merkel and the EU imposed austerity during a 1.5 hours press conference near Milan.
The problem for Brussels is Berlusconi can force a vote because by withdrawing his support to Monti’s government.
The People of Liberty party needs to consider that “with a no-confidence vote by us, we would determine a situation that would be interpreted in a certain way by the financial markets and would cause early elections,” Berlusconi told reporters yesterday near Milan. “We will consider these facts and decide whether to immediately withdraw our support of the government.”
Such a step would likely force President Giorgio Napolitano to call early elections, before a vote due by May. It also would probably fan Europe’s debt crisis, as Monti’s austerity policies have contributed to a decline in Italy’s bond yields, with markets more focused on Spain in recent months.
“It’s impossible to say what is in Berlusconi’s head now, but if he decides to end his support to Monti, early elections become almost inevitable,” said Roberto D’Alimonte, a professor of politics at Rome’s LUISS University. “Berlusconi would lose the elections anyway, but would likely get more votes thanks to an anti-austerity platform and that would increase his party’s bargaining power in the next parliament.”
In Sicily, exit polls show the candidate of Beppe Grillo’s Movimento 5 Stelle (Giancarlo Cancellieri) as the winner for the Regional Governor position with 27% of the votes.
Reader “AM” who is from Italy but now lives in Hong Kong writes …
Hello Mish
I am also an Italian citizen living in Hong Kong. I have been away from Italy since 1995 but I still read and follow Italian (and European) news and politics. I believe the EU will not hold together over the medium term and some countries, for example Belgium, Italy and Spain, might not survive the collapse of the EU in the current form and might even break up.
Some headlines from the “Corriere della Sera” from this weekend for your information that might turn out to be eventful over time and some related considerations of mine:
Record Vote Avoidance in Sicily
Key Points
- Only 47% of the people eligible voted yesterday in the regional elections in Sicily vs. close to 60% in 2008.
- The results will become available later today and there are no official exit polls, but one partial exit poll in the Palermo province projects the candidate of Beppe Grillo’s Movimento 5 Stelle (Giancarlo Cancellieri) as the winner for the Regional Governor position with 27% of the votes.
- Whoever wins will not be able to govern Sicily without complex and likely most unstable alliances with other parties because of the extreme fragmentation due to the decline of the established parties.
The mainstream media is desperately trying to support the established parties, especially the moderate small political centre parties (including trying to break up Berlusconi’s PdL party in order to ferry votes to the centre).
Their problem is that the centre and centre-left are crumbling. Instead of the rise of a moderate centre, the nationalistic and local right is rising: Movimento 5 Stelle is projected at over 20% of the national vote….
