President Sergio Mattarella, who has sought to rein in Italy’s populist leaders, took the government to task for ramming spending plans through parliament and warned that the country’s debt mountain penalizes ordinary citizens.
The head of state used his year-end televised address late on Dec. 31 to issue thinly-veiled reprimands to the coalition dominated by euroskeptic Deputy Premiers Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio, calling for measures promised in the 2019 budget to be “verified attentively” given the lack of debate.
