ITALY LATEST:  PRIME MINISTER DESIGNATE MOVES FORWARD BUT CRITICS WORRY ABOUT FINANCE MINISTER

"The M5S and League have already agreed their government team and a government 'contract' including a basic income, flat tax, pension reform, and vows to renegotiate EU spending limits, expel half a million undocumented migrants, revise the TAV high-speed rail line with France, lift compulsory school vaccinations, scrap hundreds of 'useless' laws, and strike a new partnership with Russia"

Italian news agency ANSA report in English 5/23/2018

Prime Minister designate Giuseppe Conte, a law professor, stepped out of Italian President Sergio Mattarella's office last evening (Wednesday May 23rd) to proclaim that 'with reservations' he would move forward to organize a new government under the president's mandate.

Conte said he will be a "defense lawyer" arguing the case for the people of Italy.

His majority in both houses of parliament is a coalition of the outsider parties Five Star Movement and the League.

Latest reporting from the Italian news agency ANSA is that Conte is holding consultations with the political parties in Italy's lower house this morning.

Five Star leader Luigi Di Maio proclaimed the start of a "third republic" in Italy yesterday.   The 'first republic' was formed after World War 2 and the 'second republic' emerged out of political scandals engulfing Italy's major political parties in the 1990's.

League leader Matteo Salvini warned against any veto of Paola Savona as the finance minister in a new government.  

Savona has come under media scrutiny and attack with some reports saying that President Mattarella may veto Savona as finance minister.   Mr. Savona has suggested in the past that Italy may need to pull out of the Euro.

Reuters is reporting in an opinion piece published today that a source close to Italy's president says that he will not allow a Eurosceptic (Euroskeptic) to be finance minister.

Link below.......

Thomson Reuters Foundation Opinion Piece 5/24/2018