Italy's Populist Parties Win Approval to Form Government
After 88 days of impasses and negotiations, two Italian populist parties with a history of antagonism toward the European Union received approval Thursday night to create a government that has unsettled the Continent’s political order and promises a sweeping crackdown on the illegal immigration that helped fuel their ascent.
The new government still needs to win a confidence vote in Parliament, but that was a formality. The government will be sworn in Friday.
The remarkable rise of the populists, after winning a majority of votes in elections nearly three months ago, now leaves Italy’s traditional political establishment, left and right, in tatters. It also shocked a European Union that thought it had successfully beaten back an anti-establishment and hard-right insurgency last year.
The populist victory in Italy now could not come at a worse time for the European Union. A corruption scandal in Spain threatens the demise on Friday of a government that had been a model for the central authorities in Brussels. Britain is leaving. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany is weakened. President Emmanuel Macron of France is a pro-Europe leader in search of partners. Poland and Hungary are rolling back democracy. The United States president is waging a trade war on European allies, while more and more Europeans look to Russia’s strongman, Vladimir V. Putin, as a model.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/world/europe/italy-government-populists.html
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I have family still in Italy. From my discussions with them, my take away is they have had it with immigration, no jobs, and stifling bureaucracy which they blame on the EU. They view the election as the furst step in cleaning house.