FOR the second time in less than seven years Italians have had a bloodless coup d’etat imposed on them by a loyal servant of the European Union neoliberal establishment.

Neither the Lega nor the Five Star Movement, which agreed to set up a coalition government, is an attractive proposition to socialists, internationalists or trade unionists.

Threatening to deport half-a-million asylum-seekers is outright racism, while reducing the upper level of direct taxation for businesses and individuals from 43 per cent to between 15 and 20 per cent smacks of shock therapy economics to benefit the very rich and undermine any prospect of wealth redistribution.

Yet President Sergio Mattarella has torpedoed the Lega/Five Star lash-up not by opposing Lega-inspired racism but by rejecting Paolo Savona as economy minister for being someone who “could probably, or in fact inevitably, provoke Italy’s exit from the euro.”

The Italian presidency, elected by a restricted parliamentary franchise, is, like Britain’s monarchy, described as “largely ceremonial.”

But presidential prerogative in Italy is as lethal as the Queen’s executive powers, exercised through the governor-general, were in 1975 when Australian Labour prime minister Gough Whitlam was deposed and replaced by the Tory opposition leader.

In both cases — and the November 2011 episode when president Georgio Napolitano made Mario Monti a life senator before appointing him prime minister to head a government of unelected “technocrats” — what the electorate wanted didn’t matter.

The whip hand was held by the EU and its loyal servant in the Italian presidency to appoint a former EU commissioner to push through legislation acceptable to the finance sector in the wake of the economic crisis sparked by private banks’ recklessness.

President Mattarella’s prime ministerial choice Carlo Cottarelli served briefly as a government minister, charged with identifying areas of government spending to be cut and earning himself the sobriquet Mr Scissors.

Cottarelli subsequently headed the IMF fiscal affairs department, overseeing Britain’s austerity programme inflicted by George Osborne and David Cameron, so everyone knows what’s in store for Italy’s working people.

Their concerns are not a priority because, as President Mattarella explained his action, “the uncertainty over our position in the euro alarmed Italian and foreign investors who invested in shares and companies.”

Cottarelli has answered their alarm by pledging “prudent” management of the country’s debt and declaring that, “as a founding country of the European Union, our role in the union is essential, as is our continued participation in the eurozone.”

His promise of a further dose of austerity, in line with EU orthodoxy promoted by Germany and espoused by other governments irrespective of supposedly distinct political labels, carries the seeds of social conflict.

Italians and the citizens of all other EU member states face a political equivalent of Henry Ford’s sales pitch — you can have any colour car you want provided it’s black. They can vote for a government of any hue as long as it’s neoliberal.

As the Italian online communist website Contropiano observes, “what has happened is absolutely serious, way beyond the recipients of this blow from the [presidential palace], which is acting on behalf of the European institutions, most especially Germany.

“It is dangerous to underestimate it. The European cage has closed again, but now there is a country and a population, ours, in which only 39 per cent have confidence in the EU.”

When the subservience of national political elites to an unaccountable supranational body prioritising the interests of capital meets growing impoverishment and popular anger, the fallout will present sharp challenges to the working class and the left.