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| - Italy's new Prime Minister Mario Draghi, installed in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic and a devastating recession, unveiled Wednesday a strategy based on speedier vaccinations, structural reforms, and appeals to national unity. Here are the main challenges the 73-year-old economist, known as "Super Mario" for helping save the euro as president of the European Central Bank (ECB), faces in his new mission. Italy is currently in its worst recession since World War II, brought about by the pandemic. But growth was already moribund before the coronavirus crisis, exacerbated by the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the eurozone after Greece. "Today we have, as did the governments of the immediate post-war period, the possibility or rather the responsibility to start a new reconstruction," Draghi said in the Senate. Last year, Italy's gross domestic product fell by a staggering 8.9 percent, while almost 450,000 people lost their jobs, with disproportionately high numbers among women, young people and the self-employed. To turn the economy around, Draghi can count on some 210 billion euros ($253 billion) in grants and loans from the European Union's virus recovery fund, but in return, he has to commit to an ambitious reform plan, subject to Brussels' approval. In parliament, he promised three flagship reforms on taxation, public administration and justice, as well as focus on education, promoting female employment and fighting climate change. He signalled that the economy ministry -- led by a technocrat ally -- would have overall control of Italy's national reform plan, which needs to be submitted to the European Commission by the end of April. The issue of control is particularly sensitive. Giuseppe Conte's previous government collapsed in a dispute over the issue, with conflicting demands for immediate stimulus measures and long-term structural reforms. Draghi promised welfare support to "all workers" affected by the crisis, starting with those who "have paid the highest price", but he said "it would be a mistake" to extend subsidies across the board. Draghi said fighting the coronavirus pandemic "with all means" would be his priority and promised a change of gear in a vaccination campaign that has struggled because of Europe-wide supply problems. Only 1.3 million people have received two doses of Covid-19 vaccine out of a population of 60 million, according to health ministry data Wednesday. Draghi promised to broaden the campaign with the help of volunteers, the army and the civil protection agency, and use "all available facilities, public and private", to get people jabbed. The government also faces the prospect of having to impose new restrictions to limit the spread of new, more contagious variants of coronavirus. A series of mini-lockdowns have already been imposed in several provinces, but there is strong popular and political opposition to wider shutdowns. In Italy, the first European country to face the full force of Covid-19, the death toll from the pandemic is nearing 100,000, and more than 2.7 million people have been infected. Draghi's priorities will become harder to execute if he faces the same internal dissent that brought down the last government under Giuseppe Conte. For now, he has behind him a coalition of virtually all of Italy's parties in parliament, from the left-leaning Democratic Party to the far-right League led by Matteo Salvini. "Today, unity is not an option, unity is a duty," Draghi said in his Senate address. He personally enjoys robust popular support, with 62 percent of Italians showing confidence in the leader, according to a survey in La Stampa newspaper conducted February 5. But experts warn his political capital could soon wane, particularly if he begins to push through reforms opposed by trade unions and others. ams-aa/jxb
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