Social media users have made an unfounded connection between the resignation of four European politicians and the collapse of the Italian government.
“KABOOOOOM !!! Are you sitting? 1. The entire Dutch government resigned 2. Angela Merkel resigned 3. First Prime Minister of Estonia missing 4. Italian government collapsed. The downgrading of Obama gate today! “, Reads one repetition of the post (here).
Other examples can be seen (here, here).
But two of these events are actually not unexpected or unusual, and there is no credible evidence to link one of them.
The resignation of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for example, was announced several years ago.
In 2018, Merkel said she would not run for a fifth term (here), a decision the chancellor has stood by (here) over the years.
Meanwhile, the collapse of the Italian government was not entirely unexpected.
In January, Italy’s former prime minister Matteo Renzi withdrew his small party from government, causing the ruling coalition to be stripped of its parliamentary majority (here).
The move came after repeated clashes between Renzi and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte over his handling of COVID-19 and the recession.
Such collapses occur relatively frequently in Italy, which has a history of forming governments using unstable coalitions.
Since World War II, Italy has had 66 governments (here), and even the first government of Conte only unraveled (here) a year after it was first formed.
Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas did not go missing, as some of the posts claimed, but resigned over an investigation into property development (here).
He was replaced by Kaja Kallas who became Estonia’s first female prime minister (here).
It is true that the government of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has resigned after a damning report on his cabinet’s handling of childcare subsidies (here).
The government currently has a caretaker status, and Rutte said he will continue to make decisions on COVID-19 policy until a new government is formed after the March election.
However, there is no evidence to suggest that these, or any of the other events discussed, are in any way connected to each other.
VERDICT
Missing context. Angela Merkel announced that she was resigning several years ago. The collapse of the Italian government is not without precedent. The Estonian Prime Minister did not go missing, but resigned due to an investigation into property development. The government of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has stopped a report on the handling of childcare subsidies. There is no evidence that any of these events are related.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.