ITALY: Italian President Sergio Mattarella rejected a resignation offer of Prime Minister Mario Draghi, after meeting him. After their meeting at the Quirinale Palace, Mattarella's office released a statement in which they stated that "the President has not accepted the resignation."

Draghi made the decision to formally quit late Thursday night after the Five Star Movement (M5S), the second-largest party in his coalition, abstained from a Senate vote on the government's package to curb rising prices earlier in the day. 

The statement said that the Prime Minister has been invited by the President "to appear before Parliament for communication, in order to have an evaluation of the situation... in its correct venue."

 Draghi will now likely address both the Senate and the lower house on next Wednesday. The crisis erupted after weeks of escalating tensions inside the large coalition behind the Prime Minister's national unity administration, which was established in February 2021.

Up until recent months, when squabbling over the priorities for the cabinet's short- and medium-term agenda took centre stage, Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank, had enjoyed a strong political consensus.

The Prime Minister called a meeting of the Cabinet and publicly informed his ministers that he would be resigning after the M5S declined to participate in the confidence vote on Thursday. He claimed that the majority that had supported the government from its inception no longer exists.

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