Lega Nord leader Matteo Salvini said today that his party is preparing the ground for leaving the euro zone and has called the euro a "German currency" that has damaged the Italian economy.
"It is clear to everyone that the euro is a mistake for our economy," Matteo Salvini told reporters on the sidelines of a demonstration in Florence before the parliamentary elections on March 4.
The Euro-skeptic League is a key member of the center-right coalition that polls predict will win most polling stations, but will probably not reach the majority in order to govern.
Salvini, who last month presented two prominent anti-euro economists among the Lega candidates, said it was only a matter of time before the euro collapsed and he was "preparing an emergency exit for the Italians."
“We don't have a euro in our pocket, we have a German brand they called the euro,” he said.
The League stands at around 14%, according to two polls released this week, about two points behind its main coalition ally, Forza Italia Silvio Berlusconi.
The two leaders agreed that if the center-right bloc wins the election, whichever party gets the most votes will choose the prime minister and set the political agenda.
Berlusconi, wants Italy to remain in the euro zone, and currently cannot be a candidate due to a 2013 tax fraud conviction and has not yet proposed a candidate for the position of head of government, while Salvini publicly states that if the league wins he will be the premier.
The two sides also disagree on fiscal policy.
The League released its electoral program today where it says Italy should leave the European Union unless the fiscal rules set out in the Maastricht treaty that prepared the ground for the single currency were scrapped.
"We only want to stay in the EU if we can renegotiate all the treaties that limit our full and legitimate sovereignty, in practical terms that revert to the European Economic Union that preceded the Maastricht Treaty," the program says.
Berlusconi says Italy should respect the EU budget deficit limit of 3 percent of gross domestic product.
Each party in the center-right bloc has presented its own electoral program, and the coalition has also published a more general joint program containing points that all agree on.