Return of Salvini, a pro-Draghi to the Economy: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni presented her government – Le Figaro

The Italian Prime Minister also appointed the former President of the European Parliament to Foreign Affairs.Giorgia Meloni, who with her Fratelli d’Italia party won a historic victory in the legislative elections, was officially called on Friday to the post of Prime Minister, becoming the first woman to hold this position in Italy. The 45-year-old Roman was summoned at 4:30 p.m. to the Quirinal Palace by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella. Immediately appointed, Giorgia Meloni presented the composition of her government, which will take the oath on Saturday morning at 10 a.m. under the gold of the Quirinal Palace before the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella. The list of ministers – 24 in total, including six women – reflects his desire to reassure Rome’s partners. Giancarlo Giorgetti, a powerful League figure described as the moderate and pro-European face of the party, will thus take the reins of the ministry economy. Until the end, he was a loyal supporter of outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi, for whom he was Minister of Economic Development. He was hardly the first choice of Giorgia Meloni, who had, in vain, asked Fabio Panetta, member of the executive board of the European Central Bank (ECB). As for Matteo Salvini, head of the Anti-Immigration League, he returns to the post of Deputy Prime Minister which he had already occupied after the 2018 elections, when his party had formed a government with the populist ecologists of the Movement 5 Stars. SEE ALSO – Italy: “We will be a firm and rigorous opposition”, declares Enrico LettaA pro-European diplomacyPresident of the European Parliament between 2017 and 2019, Antonio Tajani will take charge of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A choice that may seem surprising in this government with a strongly eurosceptic color. But he is close to former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the right-wing Forza Italia party, a minority partner in Meloni’s coalition which won 8% of the vote in the elections. The ties forged by Tajani over almost twenty years as an MEP and European Commissioner for Transport will be essential to maintaining good relations with Brussels. Speaking French, English and Spanish, Tajani stood in for Berlusconi, 86, in failing health, during the election campaign. Like Salvini, Tajani was also appointed Deputy Prime Minister. The Ministry of the Interior fell to a technocrat in a nationalist government for which security and immigration issues were strategic. Matteo Piantedosi, 59, has spent his entire career in the prefectural and senior civil service, largely in the Interior Ministry, where he was Matteo Salvini’s chief of staff. Since August 2020, he was prefect of Rome. Guido Crosetto, one of the founders of Fratelli d’Italia, has been appointed defense minister. In total, nine ministries were entrusted to members of Meloni’s party, five to La Liga and Forza Italia, and five to technocrats. See also Italy: the Meloni era begins with two victories for the far right The Senate, the upper house of parliament elected Ignazio La Russa, co-founder of Fratelli d’Italia with Giorgia Meloni, as its president. This 75-year-old Sicilian has been a lifelong activist on the far right, following in the footsteps of his father, a former local leader of the National Fascist Party under Mussolini who gave his son the dictator’s middle name, Benito. Minister of Defense in Berlusconi’s last government, he is known for collecting fascist memorabilia. The lower house of the Italian parliament has also chosen to preside over a colorful and no less controversial figure: Lorenzo Fontana, a close ally of Salvini, with ultra-conservative positions on issues such as abortion and gay marriage. . This devout Catholic, whose Facebook page is dotted with portraits of saints, denounced in 2014 the EU sanctions against Moscow following the annexation of Crimea, and called the Russia of President Vladimir Putin a “model” society. SEE ALSO – Meloni: what awaits the Italians