Italian prime minister-designate Enrico Letta yesterday began tricky negotiations to form a new government and end a nearly two-month-old stalemate in the eurozone’s third-largest economy.
Letta, the deputy head of the badly fractured center-left Democratic Party (PD), was the surprise choice tapped by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano to head a broad-based coalition.
The government will include the PD’s traditional arch-rivals, former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party (PDL), as well as caretaker Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti’s centrist group, both of which have said they will support the government.
Photo: Reuters
The bespectacled, balding Letta is an urbane moderate who speaks fluent English and at 46 would be one of Italy’s youngest prime ministers, representing a generational change from the era of Berlusconi, Monti and Giuliano Amato.
REFORMS
Berlusconi told an Italian television station it did not matter who headed the government as long as it enacted reforms.
“The important thing is that there is a government and that there is a parliament that can approve measures that we absolutely need to emerge from the crisis of recession and get back on the path of growth,” he said.
Letta began the consultations at parliament yesterday morning with smaller groupings, including the Left Ecology and Freedom party, which reiterated that it would remain in opposition.
The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, the largest group in the lower house Chamber of Deputies, has also said it would sit in the opposition, but would support specific reforms.
Yesterday was expected to be dedicated to horse-trading over about 18 ministerial posts in the new government, expected to be made up of technocrats and politicians.
The economy ministry could go either to Fabrizio Saccomanni, the Bank of Italy’s director-general, or Carlo Padoan, chief economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, according to Italian media.
Angelino Alfano, the secretary of the PDL, has been tipped by some to become deputy prime minister, a choice that would placate Berlusconi, but upset some in the left wing of the PD .
The industry and labor ministries could go to politicians and the foreign affairs portfolio to Monti or former Italian prime minister Massimo D’Alema of the PD, local media said.
The PDL is pushing hard for a much-hated tax on primary residences to be abolished, which was a key plank in their campaign ahead of the inconclusive February elections, which gave the PD a majority in the lower house, but not in the Senate.
Letta hopes to form the government before markets open on Monday and seek confidence votes from both houses of parliament early next week.
The PDL and PD had previously failed to reach a deal, but Napolitano twisted their arms on Saturday when he was re-elected to an unprecedented second term and threatened to resign unless parties tried to find common ground to pull Italy out of its political rut and work on institutional reforms.
BARRIERS
Rivalries between the parties as well as rifts within the PD, which fell short of a viable parliamentary majority in February’s vote, could still block an accord. However, formation of a government after such a long impasse would signal that Italy is finally ready to make a start on much-needed reforms.
Accepting his mandate on Wednesday, Letta said Italy faced an untenable situation and the government must provide answers on jobs, poverty and the crisis facing small businesses in a recession that now matches the longest since World War II.
He also said EU economic policies had been too focused on austerity, rather than growth.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia