The Conte government is finally taking shape, following the decision by Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini to heed the advice of President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella. Paolo Savona will not be Minister of the Economy.
Giuseppe Conte, the prime minister-designate tasked for the second time by President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella with forming a government following the general election of 4 March, has revealed the names of the ministers who will make up his cabinet — the majority of whom belong to the parties forming the yellow-green majority, namely the Movimento 5 stelle and Lega.
The undersecretary to the presidency of the Council of Ministers is Giancarlo Giorgetti, 52 years old, parliamentary group leader for Lega in the Chamber of Deputies and a member of parliament since 1996. Giorgetti is also one of the most trusted collaborators of Lega leader Matteo Salvini and played an active role in drafting the programme.
"We will work intensively to achieve the political objectives we set out in the contract, with determination to improve the quality of life of Italians," Conte said after his meeting with Mattarella, who received him at around 9:00 pm on Thursday 31 May.
Lega leader Salvini and Luigi Di Maio, leader of Movimento 5 stelle, will serve as Minister of the Interior and Minister of Labour and Economic Development respectively. These are the names of the other ministers who will form part of — barring any last-minute surprises — the new government. The team has been approved by President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella and comprises 14 men and 5 women. The swearing-in ceremony is expected to take place at the Quirinale on 1 June at 4:00 pm.
Leader of Lega, at the 4 March election his party was the most voted within the centre-right coalition. Born in Milan, he does not hold a university degree. He has served as a city councillor in Milan, as a journalist for the daily La Padania, and as a member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2006 and from 2009 to 22 March 2018. He holds strict views on immigration, the portfolio he will oversee at the Ministry of the Interior: he proposes rigid control of Italy's borders and the expulsion of all undocumented migrants. Resistant to European Union policies, he aims to put Italy first. The Minister of the Interior is a crucial role, as it coordinates local authorities and law enforcement.
Since September 2017 he has been political leader of Movimento 5 stelle, the party that individually received the most votes at the last election. In the previous parliamentary term he served as deputy president of the Chamber of Deputies, the youngest person ever to have held that role. He was born in 1986 in Avellino, in Campania, studied engineering and law without completing either degree, and has held a journalism licence since 2007. His views are centrist, and as Minister of Labour and Economic Development he aims to launch the reddito di cittadinanza to support Italians "who find themselves in a state of need." The amount is currently set at 780 euros per month.
Costa served as regional commander of the Corpo forestale dello Stato until its dissolution in 2016, which he openly criticised. Born in 1959, he holds a master's degree in Agricultural Sciences and a master's in Environmental Law. He is known for having led the investigation that led to the discovery of the Terra dei fuochi, the illegal dumping ground straddling the provinces of Naples and Caserta. Di Maio put forward Sergio Costa's name because he believes he is "the ideal person to present for the Ministry of the Environment, being among those who have most distinguished themselves in the fight against environmental crime." Costa is also a brigadier general of the Carabinieri and has described himself as a "servant of the state."
He was a collaborator of former prime minister Mario Monti, in whose government he served as Minister for European Affairs, a role to which he was later reconfirmed under Enrico Letta. He graduated in law from La Sapienza University in Rome in 1977. He worked for many years in European institutions before being appointed by outgoing prime minister Paolo Gentiloni as his adviser for the promotion of the (ultimately unsuccessful) transfer of the European Medicines Agency from London to Milan following Brexit.
Professor of Political Economy at the University of Tor Vergata in Rome, he studied law and gained various experience at the World Bank after serving as a consultant for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
M5s parliamentary group leader in the Chamber of Deputies, she is a member of the Social Affairs Committee and of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the Effects of the Use of Depleted Uranium. Born in Catania, she is 43 years old, holds a degree in Medicine and Surgery and specialised in Legal and Insurance Medicine. Her objectives include reducing inequalities in patient care, ensuring a more efficient public health service, and updating degree courses and training programmes in the medical field. She is in favour of vaccines, but is convinced that "acknowledging the importance of vaccinations and then compelling people to have them seems a contradiction even in the eyes of citizens."
Bonafede is a member of parliament for Movimento 5 stelle. Born in Sicily, he practises as a lawyer in Florence. Having stood as a candidate for mayor of the city in 2009 against Matteo Renzi, he received 1.8 per cent of the vote. He served as vice-president of the Justice Committee of Montecitorio during the previous parliamentary term and is a member of the Court of Appeal. He is Luigi Di Maio's "right-hand man" and is responsible for the Scudo della rete function available on the online platform Rousseau, with the aim of providing legal defence to members and elected representatives of the Movimento and ensuring the protection of the party. He supports the No TAV movement and has recently stated that his programme "remains that of reviewing all useless major public works."
She graduated from La Sapienza in Political Science with an economics focus and is an expert in international cooperation and geopolitics. She teaches at Link Campus University in Rome, where she is deputy director of the master's programme in Intelligence and Security. She works for a non-profit organisation engaged in promoting and managing sustainable development projects in countries such as Libya, Jordan and Lebanon; from 2005 to 2006 she was part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs task force in Iraq. She is an officer in the Selected Reserve of the Italian Army. She was among the names put forward by Movimento 5 stelle even before the 4 March election.
82 years old, born in Cagliari, he holds a degree in Economics and completed his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He began his career working for the Banca d'Italia, and went on to become a university professor and director general of Confindustria. From 1993 to 1994, during the Ciampi government, he served as Minister of Industry. Right up until the last moment, Savona's name had been causing tension between the majority parties: the Lega sought to make him Minister of the Economy, while M5s was willing to assign him a different role in order to avoid a clash with the Quirinale and the risk of fresh elections. Savona is, in fact, critical of the European Union and opposed to monetary union: in the end, Mattarella's request — he did not want Savona at the Economy ministry, and it was for this reason that the first attempt to form the government failed — was heeded.
Born in 1980, he has been a member of the Lega for twenty years, sharing what he describes as "gli ideali di indipendenza, autonomia e libertà". A journalist, he holds a degree in Political Science from the University of Padua and a degree in History of Christian Civilisation from the European University of Rome. He is federal deputy secretary of the Lega alongside Giancarlo Giorgetti, vice president of the Chamber of Deputies and deputy mayor of the city of Verona. He has served twice as a Member of the European Parliament and during his second term sat on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.
Riccardo Fraccaro, minister for Relations with parliament and direct democracy
Giulia Bongiorno, minister for Public administration
Barbara Lezzi, minister for the South
Gian Marco Centinaio, minister for Agricultural, food and forestry policies
Danilo Toninelli, minister for Infrastructure and transport
Erika Stefani, minister for Regional affairs and autonomies
Marco Bussetti, minister for Education, universities and research
Alberto Bonisoli, minister for Cultural heritage and tourism
