Pope meets Conte in full political crisis in Italy | Internationale

Italian President Sergio Mattarella on Thursday instructed Giuseppe Conte to try to form a coalition government between the Five-Star Movement and the PD. A gigantic step to avoid early elections and bring the country back to a certain normal after 14 months of alliance with the Matteo Salvini League. But things are not as easy as they might seem. They never went to Italy. When he had the impression that all the obstacles had been overcome, Luigi Di Maio, political leader of the grillinos, issued an ultimatum to the Social Democrats: either they accept all their conditions, or the country will head for new elections.

The problem is that Di Maio is now very weak after the emergence of Conte as a point of reference for the M5S. He lost weight and leadership after doubting until the last minute of a possible return to the alliance with the league. The figure now generates uneasiness on both sides, and negotiations between the two parties are aimed at determining where to place the deputy prime minister and head of the economic development and labor portfolio during the last term. The DP insists on creating a single Vice President of the Council of Ministers and badume it with one of his men, but the M5S does not accept this condition.

As the hours go by, Conte continues to grow and receive more support. After the President of the United States, Donald Trump, made it explicitly at the G7 summit in Biarritz, support came from the farthest pole possible. On Friday afternoon, at the funeral of Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, Pope Francis briefly met the Acting Prime Minister for "a brief greeting". The meeting, quite unusual, was soon announced by the Vatican press service. A further symptom of Conté's closeness to the Holy See, which sees him as a man capable of countering the populist drift of the M5S and curbing the climate of hatred generated by Matteo Salvini.

The support of the Vatican, with the included and very relevant photography in a country like Italy, comes at a decisive moment. The next few hours will be crucial to reaching an agreement that will allow Conté to return to the Quirinal Palace next week and hand over a list of minutes and a government program to the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella. If last weekend, the acting Prime Minister realized that this was not possible, he should communicate it and activate the mechanism for calling elections, probably after a period guided by a technical government who designed the finance law and saved the country's accounts. Next October.