Italian President Sergio Mattarella | Andreas Solaro/AFP via Getty Images Itay’s president sounds apocalyptic warning on Europe Sergio Mattarella issues barely veiled threat to likely next coalition government.

FLORENCE — The "wind of war is blowing" and Europe's edifice is shaking, said Italy's President Sergio Mattarella, in a dramatic speech Thursday morning warning of the dangers of retreat from European integration.

His address comes at a volatile moment in Italy’s domestic politics. The top vote-getters in elections earlier this year, the populist 5Star Movement and right-wing League, are rushing against an ultimatum from Mattarella to form a coalition government this week — or see the president call a new election.

Mattarella didn’t address the impasse directly in his speech here, and he didn’t lay his cards out on the table whether he would attempt to scotch a coalition. But his message was a thinly veiled threat to the duo that, though residing on different parts of the traditional political spectrum, has questioned Italy's future membership in the eurozone and sounded skeptical on the EU itself.

Italy’s political problems are infectious, the 76-year-old Sicilian suggested, and threaten stability across Europe. Mattarella had harsh words for everyone: the EU, national political parties and individual Italians. In a dangerous global context, “the building of Europe is shaking,” and needs “maintenance work,” he said.

“The European project has lost its ability to meet the expectations of large portions of the population,” he said at a conference in the hills outside Florence, while criticizing his citizens for seeking “refuge in a purely domestic dimension, nurturing an illusion that their problems can be dealt with at only the national level.”

Instead of turning to the nation state, Mattarella said "irreversible unity" at the European level is "urgent."

Mattarella has assumed center-stage in Italy’s torturous post-election negotiations about a potential coalition administration. He has the power to block a minority government, but can't block a coalition that would have the votes in parliament.

If the anti-establishment 5Stars and the right-wing League come to power, together or somehow alone, it would be the first time a founding member country of the EU has been led by populist and anti-EU forces.

Mattarella, who serves as referee in coalition talks, on Wednesday gave Italy’s populist parties 24 hours to avoid a caretaker government and new election.

ANSA, the Italian news agency, reported that Mattarella would tap Elisabetta Belloni, a senior civil servant under several Italian governments, to be prime minister. If selected, Belloni would be the first woman to lead Italy.

The conference at the European University Institute (EUI) — an EU-funded school of 800 researchers and doctorate students dedicated to improving EU integration — is billed as the EU's annual state of the union gathering. Its theme this year is "solidarity in Europe."

Mattarella requested that students of the university, not Italian political bigwigs or security, take up the first rows of the audience to hear his speech, said a spokesperson for the university.