The Italian President on Monday named senior economist Carlo Cottarelli Italy's new prime minister-designate. Alberto Lingria/Press Association. All rights reserved.
Liberals across Europe seem happy: President Mattarella has prevented populists from taking over the Italian government and averted another Euro crisis. Their joy will be short-lived, however.
In my view, Mattarella’s decision is bad for Italy, Germany, and Europe. The only political force which is likely to profit is the Northern League – an extreme right-wing party which campaigns chiefly against migrants, and sides with Vladimir Putin and Marine Le Pen. Liberal democracy will be the greatest victim in Italy and beyond. Centrist parties will be reduced to a political footnote in the next Italian elections. Politics in the coming months will be ever more contentious, if not violent. Europe will be even more paralysed, faced with instability in one of its most important member-states. Germany will have to live with the implications.
