The senators of the 5 Star Movement headed by Guiseppe Conte (M5S, antisystem), member of the ruling coalition, did not participate in the vote of confidence on Thursday on a text discussed in the Senate, at the risk of causing the resignation of the Prime Minister Mario Draghi.
"Today, we are not taking part in the vote on this decree-law", had announced a little earlier the head of the senators of the M5S, Mariolina Castellone, explaining that this text did not meet, according to her, the needs of the country, even if Prime Minister Mario Draghi made their non-participation a casus belli leading to his resignation.
Giuseppe Conte, the former head of government who preceded Draghi and current boss of the 5 Star Movement, announced this scenario on Wednesday evening.
The story is Italian, complicated: this decree-law, which contains measures of around 23 billion euros to help families and businesses in the face of inflation, also contains a measure to facilitate the construction of an incinerator rubbish in Rome.
However, the M5S is opposed to incinerators which, according to them, are expensive, polluting, inefficient and do not encourage the population to sort waste.
During the vote in the Chamber of Deputies last week, the M5S had voted confidence in the government but had subsequently abstained during the concrete vote on the decree-law.
The rules are however different in the Senate where the vote of confidence coincides with that of the document in question, not allowing the M5S the loophole used in the Chamber of Deputies.
Mario Draghi for his part affirmed on several occasions that there would be no government without the M5S nor a Draghi-bis government without M5S, even if the number of elected members of this party is not sufficient in itself to bring it down.
