Brussels, 07/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - “We'll vote tomorrow …, so I'll put (to parliament) the issue of confidence on the letter to the EU and the ECB. I want to see clearly those who are trying to betray me.” Thus Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi responded to the rumours that he would resign on Monday, pushed ever closer to the edge by a growing number within his own party and defections from it, leaving behind an increasingly teetering majority.
Rumours backed by calls to resign from government heavyweights, such as Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti, who, after the humiliation of Italy's being put under EU and IMF monitoring at the G20 summit and conveying the general feeling of his peers, was forthright with the prime minister: “Rightly or wrongly, the problem with Italy is you”. Rumours to which the markets, too, reacted: going after Italy even more fiercely at the start of the morning, when the yield on Italian 10-year bonds rose to 6.64% and the spread with the German Bund to 467 basis points, before they fell back in the wake of ever more insistent rumour's of Berlusconi's resignation then rising once more following the denial.
The future of the prime minister and his government depends more and more on a few votes which could fail him tomorrow, especially if his allies, the Northern League, drop him, a strong possibility after the comments of Home Affairs Minister Roberto Maroni who, during a television programme, alluded clearly to early elections.
The situation in Italy is, then, now more than ever central to discussions in the Eurogroup meeting on Monday evening, at which the other countries expect “Minister Tremonti to state how Italy intends to realise the measures set out by Mr Berlusconi for Presidents Barros and Van Rompuy on 26 October”, said the spokesman of Commissioner Olli Rehn. A further Eurogroup meeting could take place later this month, depending on the outcome of Monday's meeting.
In this context, it was learned that, while awaiting the EU and IMF monitoring in Italy, the Italian government and the EU reached agreement on a review of programmes co-funded by the EU, providing for up to €8 billion for the southern Italian regions. Regional Policy Commissioner Johannes Hahn approved the cohesion action plan, transposing the document agreed last week by the Italian minister responsible for regional policy and the leaders of the eight southern regions. (FG/transl.rt)