Italy crisis: populists set to form government

Italy’s populist parties have been given a green light to form a new coalition government, ending months of political and financial instability.

Representatives for the anti-immigrant, hard-Right League party and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement presented a revised list of ministers to Italian president Sergio Mattarella, who gave the new-look coalition his approval.

The parties came close to forming a government last weekend, before Mattarella “torpedoed” incoming prime minister Giuseppe Conte’s choice for foreign minister, says The Daily Telegraph.

The nominee, Paolo Savona, was a noted Eurosceptic who has described Italy’s adoption of the Euro as a “historic error” and called for Italy to consider leaving the EU.

Under the new agreement, the role of foreign minister will be given to Giovanni Tria, an economics professor at Rome’s Tor Vergata university who is “in favour of Italy’s continued membership of the single currency”, the BBC says.

Conte’s coalition government is due to be sworn in later today.