Renzi to step down now that Senate OK’d Italy’s 2017 budget

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi announced on Monday that he would resign after suffering a resounding defeat in a referendum over constitutional reform, leaving the euro zone’s third-largest economy in political limbo.

“I lost. I can admit it and I am sorry”. It will now be up to president Sergio Mattarella to guide the country through this delicate post-Renzi moment.

The vote energized the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and the anti-immigrant Northern League, whose leader has allied himself with far-right figures in Europe including France’s Marine Pen. He told reporters in Brussels that “it doesn’t really change the situation economically in Italy or in the Italian banks. This should deal with current affairs and rapidly approve a new election law and bring the country to new elections”, Mr. Emanuele told Sputnik.

Another voter, Alex, said that Renzi’s mistake was making the referendum too political.

The Australian dollar was weighed down after the Reserve Bank of Australia kept interest rates unchanged but sounded cautious on economic growth. The minister said: “There is no reason to talk of a euro crisis and there is certainly no reason to conjure one up”.

Italian Premier Matteo Renzi said he would resign Wednesday evening now that Parliament has approved the 2017 national budget, a step required by the nation’s president before he would let the leader step down. The turnout of 67 per cent was especially high for a referendum, and more in line for a vote for Parliament.

After a tepid week marked by thin trading ahead of the Italian referendum, European equities shrugged off the outcome to head for their biggest gain since the US election.

It’s nearly an indication of the depth of despair that Sunday’s win by left-leaning Alexander Van der Bellen over his rightist rival for Austria’s presidency – a largely symbolic post – was welcomed as a blow against the populist forces victorious elsewhere.

The president could call for early elections, a scenario that would roil markets as the 5-Star Movement would likely do well or even win. Only three regions voted Yes: Tuscany, Emilia Romagna and South Tyrol – two of which are traditional strongholds of Renzi’s party.

Opinion polls put 5-Star neck-and-neck with the PD.

But the 41-year-old Renzi said he would leave office after voters decisively rejected his plans to reduce the role of the upper house Senate and centralise power.

“The man alone at the command doesn’t exist anymore, but the citizens who govern the institutions” do, Mr. Di Maio told a news conference minutes after Mr. Renzi conceded.

Technically speaking, the No vote in Italy’s constitutional referendum yesterday was a vote for the status quo.

Mr. Mattarella, as head of state, would have to decide whether to accept Mr. Renzi’s resignation. Renzi’s squabbling Democrats are the biggest party in the legislature, which could lead the president to tap someone from the Democratic Party fold. Analysts expect that Mattarella will appoint a transition government to draft a new election law, with speculation centering on either Renzi’s finance minister, Pier Carlo Padoan, or the president of the Senate, Pietro Grasso, to lead the effort. He urged elections straightaway.

Many had read the referendum as an outlet for growing anti-establishment, populist sentiment in Europe.

Grillo wants an immediate general election in order to capitalise not only on the momentum of Renzi’s defeat yesterday, but also on the mess of Italy’s half-reformed electoral system.

“The structures supporting the European Union and eurozone system are not collapsing, but today’s vote is another discernable crack in the foundation”, Lafferty said.

Berlusconi himself was forced to resign in 2011 amid growing global concern over Italy’s sovereign debt crisis and was replaced by economist Mario Monti, without elections.