Italy’s Conte Calls on Lawmakers to Back His Plan to Govern

(Bloomberg) -- Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte urged lawmakers to rally behind him and back his program to continue governing, as he struggles to bolster his coalition after the defection of a junior ally.

“It is possible to find once again among parliamentary forces an agreement on reforms to relaunch the country,” Conte said in Rome on Monday. “Help us, help us to restart as fast as possible.”

Conte, who’s in his second term as premier, made his appeal in the lower house ahead of a confidence vote due Monday evening. He sought to recruit pro-European centrists, unaffiliated lawmakers and even potential defectors from the small Italy Alive party headed by ex-premier Matteo Renzi, who ditched the ruling coalition last week.

While the 56-year-old Conte is expected to win an outright majority in the lower house vote, he faces a tougher fight in the Senate on Tuesday where he may manage to muster only enough votes to limp on as the head of a minority government. The weakened premier could then spend weeks seeking to negotiate backing for a broader administration with a new program, officials said.

Recovery Fund

In his comments Conte prioritized spending Italy’s share of the European Union’s recovery fund -- the issue that triggered Renzi’s pullout -- and handling the coronavirus pandemic. The result of the lower house vote is expected at about 8:30 p.m. Rome time.

Making his pitch, Conte urged “transparent” backing for “an inescapable pro-European stand,” excluding anti-EU forces, to forge a new alliance and a government program to last until the end of the term of parliament in 2023. “Go home, go home,” opposition lawmakers chanted in reply.

The premier, who led a euroskeptic coalition in his first government, also warned against more political turmoil, saying tensions so far have affected the spread between Italian and German bonds - an issue which helped to force out ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi in 2011.

So far, political tensions have had no significant impact on investor confidence, unlike in earlier Italian political crises, due to the European Central Bank’s supportive monetary policies. The spread between 10-year Italian government bond yields and that of German bunds rose to around 120 basis points before declining to around 114 basis points, leaving Italy able to borrow at near record-low rates.

To secure parliamentary support, Conte promised he would relinquish control of Italy’s secret services, giving in to criticism by Renzi and other parties, as well as of the agriculture ministry, which he took over following its minister’s resignation.

(Updates with premier’s comments from fifth paragraph.)