Supermario: It is now up to Mario Draghi to face a new challenge.
The Italian who saved Europe will now have to be able, with his prestige, to coagulate a solid parliamentary majority.
His name went through the confrontation and debate that opened with the resignation of Prime Minister Conte from the beginning, so much so that he was immediately considered the only one able to untie the skein of the confrontation that seems to have harnessed politics, the 'last card before the elections to address the health, social and economic difficulties caused by Covid.
And win the challenge that the country has to manage with European funds.
Supermario, in fact.
As Draghi demonstrated at the helm of the ECB, rigorously safeguarding the principles of Europe but at the same time managing to act as a shield to the difficulties and contradiction of the Union also towards the markets.
Super Mario.
With a degree at Sapienza University and a master at MIT in Boston, Draghi was general manager of the Treasury - with the minister Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, the first among the Ciampi boys - where he managed the privatization season.
A brief interlude at Goldman Sachs and then held the role of governor of the Bank of Italy, a position that catapulted him into the international hubs of the Financial Stability Board and into the ECB as a member of the board.
But for everyone Mario Draghi is the man who saved Europe, when in 2011 he saw the consent of the countries most attentive to public finances, including Germany, coagulate on his candidacy.
Its debut was fulminating with the 'whetever it takes', three words in English ("everything you need"), able to stop the markets and act as a shield to countries in tension due to the trend in bond rates. of State.
Words followed by facts, in a careful management of words and decisions, culminating in quantitative easing: the commitment of the ECB - and the central banks of the various European countries - to support their securities on the market.
In fact, it changed the ECB's 'toolbox' without distorting its role.
"The future? Ask my wife," he said, leaving the ECB to lead Christine Lagarde.
But even before that, politics had nominated him in the most important roles.
It is impossible to deny that, even before the current political crisis, many thought of him as Mattarella's possible successor to the Presidency of the Republic, given that the current tenant of the Colle has made it known that he is not thinking of a new seven-year term.
Withdrawn from politics, Supermario has the ability to maintain great balance, without hiding his opinion.
"We are facing a war against the coronavirus and we must move accordingly," he said, breaking the silence after leaving the ECB with an intervention published last March in the Financial Times.
"The cost of hesitation could be irreversible", he then added, with a warning that appears in full harmony with the urgency and fears expressed in the evening by Mattarella.
This summer his speech this summer to focus attention on young people, asking countries to intervene to guarantee liquidity to companies and support incomes, even at the expense of the increase in debt.
The last message, in December, on the challenge that Italy now faces, that of the Recovery Fund.
"The sustainability of the public debt in a certain country will be judged on the basis of growth and therefore also of how the resources of Next Generation Eu will be spent", a phrase accompanied by a warning to countries on the use of resources: "If the resources are wasted debt will eventually become unsustainable because the projects financed will not produce growth. "