One thing cannot be transferred to Mario Draghi. He was no worse than other Italian prime ministers before him when it comes to the length of his tenure. Draghi's 18-month reign is even longer than the average of Italy's 67 post-World War II governments. Italy is used to government crises and constant changes.
From the outside, it doesn't make the country stable, but it makes it politically entertaining. Italian voters enjoy the spectacle with a mixture of fascination and rejection. Like many before his, this resignation also had something of an opera: drama, envy, indignation, jealousy.
There was a bit of everything, but there was no real political reason. It was about the neurosis of the left-wing populist Giuseppe Conte, who sabotaged the grand coalition of "national unity". Right-wing populists now feel that they have the opportunity to appoint right-wing extremist Đorđa Meloni as prime minister for the first time in possible new elections.
According to polls, she and her "Brothers of Italy" are quite ahead. It is still questionable whether she can form a right-wing coalition with the superego of Silvio Berlusconi (Forza Italia) and Matteo Salvini (Lega), that is, form a more stable government than many previous ones. Maybe the two social democratic parties will manage to form a left-wing majority in the pre-election campaign?
The non-partisan Mario Draghi, who after the collapse of the left-wing populist governments led by the anti-party Five Star Movement was installed as a technocrat at the head of the government of national unity, actually did everything right. He brought Italy out of the corona crisis and provided that highly indebted country with unprecedentedly large grants and loans from the EU for reconstruction. He gave Italy more weight in the EU than its Eurosceptic predecessors. As a former president of the European Central Bank, he understood the economy, but could not prevent the dramatic rise in inflation.
A strong Italy would be better
The fact that the visibly exhausted Dragi is now leaving is bad news for Italy, but also for the European Union. In the coming recession, in the energy crisis, in the terrible conflict with Russia because of its vile war against Ukraine, a strong and practical Italy is needed. The European Union is weakened by what has been lost for months in internal politics and its complex, completely fractured party system.
If the reforms that Draghi finally restarted after decades are stopped, it can only be bad for the Italian economy and society. Markets are already reacting with falling share prices, pressures on already failing Italian banks and rising interest rates on government bonds. The next government, especially if it includes right-wing populists sympathetic to Russia, will find it difficult to guide a heavily indebted Italy through the stormy times ahead. And if Italy goes bankrupt, the euro common currency will be under pressure and the European Union will weaken. Italy is too big to fail, too important to fail.
At the beginning of his term, Mario Draghi was hailed as the last chance to get a stumbling Italy back on its feet. Was the chance squandered? Regular elections should be held early next year anyway. By then at the latest, the non-party technocrat Mario Draghi would have to step down. Thus, the political drama began some six months earlier, albeit in the midst of multiple crises of inflation and the consequences of the war.
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