"We will do a good job and help Italy get out of this difficult situation." The prime minister, Mario Monti, is confident at the end of the swearing-in ceremony of deputy ministers and undersecretaries at Palazzo Chigi. The Premier guaranteed that the new Executive will help "the political forces to find a more serene climate and reconciliation with public opinion".
The team "is leaner" than the previous one, but also "stronger in terms of numbers. Compared to the previous government, the ministers drop from 26 to 19 and the deputy ministers and undersecretaries drop from 40 to 28”. The prime minister also specified that "the Deputy Minister for Economy and Finance Vittorio Grilli will be permanently invited to participate in the meetings of the Councils of Ministers".
This Government “will be totally transparent – the Professor underlined -. Many of the people here have given up on higher wages and careers. So be careful when talking about conflicts of interest”. According to the Premier, many have accepted the government post "out of a spirit of service" to the country. Monti then explained that, in order to bring some personalities into the team, he had to "perform work of conviction and this also applies to some ministers".
As for confrontation with the political forces, there is a "constructive relationship, which involves static-dynamic innovation, because in Parliament we have received the trust of political forces who were in constant disagreement until recently and who are now the effort to look at us and not at each other. So at all times it will be an essentially constructive relationship, we are highly respected by the political forces".
For the appointment of the undersecretaries for relations with the Parliament - Gianpaolo D'Andrea and Antonio Malaschini - the Professor revealed that he had "offered the political forces to choose either a personality with parliamentary experience or one of high technical value: one opted for the first criterion, one for the second. I respect both solutions, of course the two undersecretaries will respect each other".
To those who accuse him of excessive slowness in the composition of the government team, Monti replies that “the difficult conditions did not allow us to devote every moment to the composition of the government team. I had to devote part of the day and night to working out important economic measures and building relationships in Europe”.
