Italy’s Five Star Movement has a deal to form a new government

GIUSEPPE CONTE is poised to boldly go where no Italian technocrat has gone before. Independent prime ministers in Italy either bow out at the end of their governments or get shoved aside by the voters if they try to hang on. But on August 29th President Sergio Mattarella asked Mr Conte to form a second coalition, this time teaming the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) with the centre-left Democratic Party (PD).

Mr Conte has spent 14 months heading an all-populist government that yoked the Five Stars to the hard-right Northern League. The League’s leader, Matteo Salvini, ill-advisedly pulled the rug this month, thinking it was under his allies’ feet, when in fact it was under his own. The M5S has around a third of the seats in parliament, and can command a majority with the help of the PD and independent lawmakers.

In his resignation speech on August 20th, the popular Mr Conte excoriated the League leader to his face, calling him disloyal and irresponsible. The former university law teacher’s performance endeared him to the Five Stars, to the point that they made his continuance in office a condition for a deal with the PD.

A second Conte government will please officials in Brussels. They feared that Mr Salvini’s plans for drastic tax cuts, in a country already saddled with...