ITALIAN PRESIDENT CALLS ON MARIO DRAGHI TO FORM GOV’T

After the failure of exploratory talks, Italy's head of state Sergio Mattarella has called for the formation of a unity government and asked former European Central Bank Governor Mario Draghi to form it, Johannes Neudecker and Petra Kaminsky reported for Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa).

“I feel obliged to appeal to all the political forces present in parliament to give their confidence to a high-profile government that should not identify itself with any political formula," he said in a short speech on Tuesday evening.

Shortly afterwards, his official residence issued a statement that former European Central Bank (ECB) chief Mario Draghi had been summoned to the Quirinal Palace for talks on Wednesday.

Draghi had been for weeks talked about as a potential head of a technocratic government. Such a Cabinet would likely be a solution for the coming weeks or months to guide Italy through its most pressing problems during the coronavirus pandemic.

Party negotiations mediated by the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Roberto Fico, to resurrect Italy's center-left governing coalition broke down late on Tuesday, he said in Rome. Fico had been leading talks to find a parliamentary majority among parties that had supported the previous government under Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.

Mattarella had sought Fico's help to solve the crisis triggered when Conte submitted his resignation last Tuesday. Conte's move came in response to former prime minister Matteo Renzi's Italia Viva party leaving the center-left coalition in mid-January during a spat over how to use pandemic aid from the European Union.

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