Giuseppe Conte

Giuseppe Conte has been President of the Council of Ministers from March 2018 to June 2020. Although Art. 95 states that the President of the Council of Ministers is responsible for coordinating inter-ministerial activity, it is also said that the Ministers themselves have individual responsibility for matters relating to their ministries (See Italy, “Presidency of the Council”).During Conte’s presidency, Salvini’s ministry introduced the Law Decree no 53 of 14 June 2019, which the Italian parliament passed into law on 8 August 2019, thus empowering the Interior Minister to limit or block altogether the entry of private vessels into Italian territorial waters for reasons of national security and public order. Giuseppe Conte supported the decree law and his interior minister saying ““we want certain behaviour to be a bit more transparent on the part of the NGOs too, I don’t want to lay it on but we are asking for greater transparency.” (See Italy, “Closed Ports Policy”). During his presidency the number of admin seizures against NGOs has increased.

During the suspect's two terms, Italy continued to train and to provide material supply to the Libyan Coast Guard.