How Angela Merkel interferes in Italian political issues

Angela Merkel phones Italian left-wing party "Partito Democratico (PD)" and pushes its leaders to form a government with Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) in order to put a stop to Salvini and the "sovranist" forces.

It is not a joke, but pure reality as exposed by Italian newspapers "La Repubblica" and "Il Giornale".

As optimally illustrated by Italian journalist and "Il Giornale online" chief editor, Andrea Indini, Merkel's phone call arrived on Friday evening, after vice-prime minister Luigi Di Maio had raised the stakes by imposing a more articulated program in order to find a deal to form a new government with Partito Democratico.

In addition, Di Maio seems to have asked PD for the vice-presidency and one of the important ministries (such as Interior Affairs or Defense), something which Partito Democratico does not seem to appreciate and neither do the financial markets and the EU.

Infact, as Di Maio slowed the negotiations down, the financial markets immediately fell back to negative terms, making it clear that they will not accept a failure of an agreement to form a new pro-EU government that should replace the Lega-M5S one.

It was already interesting enough to see the financial markets respond positively as the Italian "populist-sovranist" government reached the end of its course. Now we are seeing the opposite sign as the pro-EU government is having a hard time in finding an agreement.

Is the financial world basically deciding who will rule Italy? Well, it seems that Angela Merkel has her own part too, as she picked up the phone and called a high member of Partito Democratico (maybe Paolo Gentiloni, according to Italian media) and told him that "the government must be made at all costs in order to stop the sovranists".

Consequently, as Giuseppe Conte called the Partito Democratico representatives, they gave a green light to further negotiations.

The Italian "yellow-green" government which saw Giuseppe Conte as prime Minister and Matteo Salvini (Lega) and Luigi Di Maio (M5S) as vice-prime ministers and respectively minister of Interior and minister of Labor, reached its end in mid-August as Salvini denounced heavy interferences by both, M5S and the EU against his policies, especially the block of illegal immigration coming from the African route.

Since then the right wings have been calling for immediate elections due to their extremely positive results at the latest EU and regional elections.

However, Partito Democratico is trying to find an agreement with M5S (which has a slight majority in the Parliament) in order to form a wide majority that will lead to a new government. It doesn't matter if PD had disastrous results at the latest elections. The Italian parliamentarian system permits such negotiations before indicting new elections.

The President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, seems to be well behind this PD-M5S negotiations which has been going on for days now, blocking the whole institutional mechanism.

Obviously, the most logical and healthy solution would have been to immediately head for new elections. Let's keep well in mind that an eventual "deal" between PD and M5S would lead to a non-elected government formed by parties that did not perform well at the last elections and it would send Lega, which was close to 40% consent until a few weeks ago, to the opposition.

Partito Democratico leaders are well aware that by going to elections they would unavoidably be defeated, so why not try to find a deal with M5S, which still has a majority in Parliament, in order to form a coalition and gain power without elections?

Some members of "Partito Democratico" claimed that it's a necessary measure to stop the fascist-sovranist advance; in few words, it doesn't matter if the Italian people do not want to be ruled by PD, they will still find  a way to take power and keep it as long as possible.

Going back to Angela Merkel, is it normal that the leader of another European country interferes in such a brazen manner in the internal political issues of another country?

Just imagine what would have happened if Russian president Vladimir Putin would have called Salvini to advise him on what to do. We would have seen all kind of accusations on "Russian interference", another "Russiagate" and other ridiculous claims. However, if Angela Merkel decides to interfere in Italia political issues, then it's fine. After all Pope Francis already had interfered on several occasions against the new anti-immigration policies implemented by Salvini, and let's keep well in mind that the Vatican is a sovereign State, it is not Italy. Let's also recall that the Pope is supposed to deal with spiritual issues rather than interfering in the internal political issues of other countries.

However all these seem to just be insignificant details if the objective is stopping the rise of political forces that are not welcome by the EU, the so called "sovranists", as if "sovereign state" was some sort of evil project or curse word and it might very well be in the eyes of certain lobbies and pressure groups, especially if these "sovranists" are against sanctions on Russia, the EU economic policies and against illegal immigration.

Photo provided by the author of the article