Italy’s president rejected the resignation of Prime Minister Mario Draghi on Thursday after a day of political drama that threatened to bring down a national unity government that has been in office less than 18 months.
The former European Central Bank (ECB) president, announced he was to resign on Thursday after the 5-Star Movement, a coalition party, failed to back him in a confidence vote over his plan to combat soaring prices.
“The national unity coalition that backed this government no longer exists,” said Draghi, who has been prime minister of a broad coalition since February 2021.
Draghi, 74, went to the Quirinale Palace in Rome to meet President Sergio Mattarella and hand in his resignation but Mattarella, the supreme arbiter in Italian politics, urged him to rethink. The ECB is working on a new tool to contain divergence between German borrowing costs and those of highly indebted member states such as Italy.
Draghi had been seen as providing reassurance that Italy would respect any conditions attached to the new mechanism but his departure would create fresh uncertainty.
