From the Center for European Reform, this is the CERR podcast.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the CER podcast.

My name is Sophia Besh.

I'm a research fellow here at the Center for European Reform,

and today I'm in conversation with Luigi Scatzieri who's also a research fellow here.

Luigi is here to talk to us about Italy and the new government there and we do know that this is

a kind of new cycle that has developed very quickly over the last few days so a little disclaimer is that

we're recording this on Monday the 4th and it'll go out on Wednesday but luckily what we are here to do today is to go a bit deeper into the analysis.

So hopefully the new cycle of the next 48 hours isn't going to make this interview irrelevant.

Right, Luigi, let's jump right in. Can you describe to us what the new government actually looks like? Where are we now?

Sure. So first of all, they have already sworn in the new government actually looks like? Where are we now? Sure. First of all, they have already sworn in the new government and it will present itself

to parliament in order to obtain a vote of confidence in these coming days. So it looks like a done deal,

but we shouldn't see any more surprises. The new government is a coalition between the five star and the league,

with an interesting mix of technocrats thrown in.

So most of the ministers are from either party,

but there are also professors of economics.

And the foreign minister used to be a minister in Mario Monti's government.

So a bit of a strange, interesting presence.

Okay. Just very quickly, five stars who, the league is who?

So the league used to be called the Northern League, this Northern Italian Independentist Party,

which over the past few years has essentially morphed into a typical right-wing populist party.

The Five Star is a bit of a stranger beast.

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