The leader of Italy's ruling League party, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, said on Thursday the governing coalition had broken down and the only way forward was to hold new elections.
The shock announcement follows months of bickering between the right-wing League and its coalition partner, the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, and it throws the euro zone's third-largest economy into an uncertain political future.
Salvini said in a statement that he had told Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte that the alliance with 5-Star had collapsed after little more than a year in power and "we should quickly give the choice back to the voters.