Italy’s new cabinet was sworn in on Thursday morning sealing an alliance between the populist Five Star Movement (M5S) and the centre-left Democratic Party (PD).
It relegates Matteo Salvini’s far-right League movement to the opposition.
Guiseppe Conte remains as Italy’s prime minister and now leads a team of 21 ministers — 10 from M5S, 9 from PD, one independent and one from the left-wing Free and Equal party. Only seven of them are women.
Luigi Di Maio, formerly deputy prime minister and minister for industry and labour, is now the country’s foreign minister.
The crucial economy ministry was given to PD’s Roberto Gualtieri, the chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, while independent Luciana Lamorgese will replace the League’s firebrand leader, Matteo Salvini, at the interior ministry.
Lamorgese, the first woman to lead the Milan prefecture, is a veteran at the interior ministry, which she first joined in 1979. Over the past decade, she has primarily worked on migration and the integration of refugees and migrants.
The appointments have been welcomed by financial markets who see them as less likely to clash with Brussels. Italian bonds have rallied strongly over the past week, with 10-year yields touching a new record low of 0.803% on Wednesday. They were above 1.5% at the start of August.
The country was plunged in a political crisis in early August when Salvini pulled the plug on the League-M5S coalition in the hope of triggering new elections that he hoped would see the League rule alone.
The new government will only be fully operational once it has been approved by both houses of parliament.
The votes scheduled for Monday and Tuesday.