Italy's Bersani meets Berlusconi to seek end to impasse

By Steve Scherer

ROME (Reuters) - Italian center-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani met his center-right rival Silvio Berlusconi on Tuesday to discuss the election for the next president of the Republic, offering hope of a breakthrough in the deadlock left by elections in February.

"It was a good meeting but we're at the beginning," Enrico Letta, deputy leader of Bersani's Democratic Party (PD), told reporters in parliament.

He said the meeting had focused only on the election of the next president, not on any possible deal to form a government.

Letta said there would be further meetings in the next few days with Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) and other parties but said no names were discussed at Tuesday's meeting, intended to prepare the way for the start of the presidential election process on April 18.

The election of the next president, to succeed head of state Giorgio Napolitano whose term ends on May 15, is the next big test for the divided political parties, which have failed to reach an agreement on forming a government.

It is unclear how far any accord over the presidential election will clear the way to a deal that would allow a government to take office but the tone struck following the meeting was much more cordial than it has been in recent days.

"It was useful to get clarity on the criteria we need first to agree on a range of names, then on a person who can unite the country," Letta said.

"In a moment of great division we feel a strong need to give a signal of unity to the country. That's why we want to try to find unity around a name we can both support," he said.

In a separate statement, PDL secretary Angleino Alfano said the president would have to be a figure who could embody national unity and could not be hostile to any party.

"WE HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN"

The vote for the next president will be vital because with his mandate about to expire, Napolitano no longer has the power to dissolve parliament and call new elections and it will be up to his successor to find a way out of the deadlock.

Bersani, who won a majority in the lower house but fell short of the Senate majority which would have allowed him to govern, has so far refused Berlusconi's demands for a "grand coalition" between the two rival forces.

The other main force, the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement led by ex-comic Beppe Grillo, has refused any alliance with either of the big parties it blames for Italy's deep social and economic crisis.

In an interview with RAI state television, Bersani stuck to his rejection of Berlusconi's demands to form a coalition, saying the center-right leader had shown during the technocrat government of Mario Monti that he could not be trusted.

"When I meet him, I will say, 'We haven't forgotten. We know you even if you try to disguise yourself'," he said.

"We're trustworthy and we look for trustworthiness in others, if there are proposals, we'll see. Only they shouldn't come with proposals for a 'governissimo' because that's not possible. If they've got other ideas, we can talk about it."

Bersani has so far stuck to his hard line on Berlusconi despite increasing calls from senior figures in sections of his party for a dialogue with the center-right to avoid a potentially destabilizing return to the polls.

He wants to present a limited set of proposals to parliament and seek a wider accord among the parties for a broad series of institutional reforms, including changes to the widely criticized electoral law which led to the stalemate.

Berlusconi has demanded that the center-right be allowed to choose the next head of state as the price of its support to a government led by the center-left. He says the only alternative is new elections at the earliest date possible in June or July.

(Additional reporting by Roberto Landucci; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Michael Roddy)

View the original article here

Italy's 10 'sages' try to help form government

ROME (AP) — Ten "wise men" will try to do what Italy's bickering politicians haven't been able to accomplish since inconclusive elections in late February — figure out a formula to help form a new government fast for the recession-mired nation as financial markets impatiently await an end to the impasse.

President Giorgio Napolitano created the panel of experts last week after center-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani failed to form a governing coalition with wide support in Parliament, and the 10 members will have their first meeting with him at the Quirinal Presidential Palace on Tuesday, which coincides with the resumption of financial trading after the long Easter weekend.

Napolitano has referred to the group as working committees, while the media and other politicians immediately dubbed them the "10 wise men."

Bersani's forces won the lower Chamber of Deputies in the elections, but fell short of controlling the Senate. He refused the offer of archrival Silvio Berlusconi, the former center-right premier whose coalition finished runner-up, to form a "grand coalition" government. And the third bloc in the gridlocked political puzzle, the anti-establishment, anti-euro newcomer, 5-Star Movement headed by comic Beppe Grillo, refused to back anybody but themselves for the job of governing Italy.

The panel, including lawmakers, professors and a central bank official, will try to devise a reform agenda that a broad spectrum of parties can embrace, especially electoral and economic reforms, in a bid to avoid new elections soon.

They're hardly impartial. Several of them have been lawmakers in either Bersani's or Berlusconi's parties. Another panel member is a minister in the caretaker government of Mario Monti, who was appointed in late 2011 to replace Berlusconi as premier as Italy veered toward the abyss of the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis.

European Union and central banking officials credit Monti with keeping Italy from succumbing to the crisis. But voters resoundingly rejected his harsh medicine for financial recovery — higher taxes, slashed government spending and tightening the generous national pension system. Monti's new centrist movement finished a poor fourth in the balloting, as Italians tired of making financial sacrifices that weren't coupled with measures to jumpstart the economy and reduce soaring unemployment.

But while Napolitano's goal in setting up the panel was to help find common ground among potential government coalition partners, about the only thing politicians seemed to agree about it was they were skeptical about what it could accomplish.

"Either a political government is born" quickly or, "we do what comes naturally in a democracy, return to the polls," Berlusconi ally Maurizio Gasparri said. "Let hope it's not just a delaying tactic" to put off new elections, Gasparri told Sky TG24 TV Monday in a phone interview. Berlusconi, on trial in Milan in criminal cases which he says are part of a campaign by leftist sympathizers to end his political career, could try again for a comeback if elections are called soon.

A veteran Radical party leader and former European Union commissioner, Emma Bonino, echoing a common criticism, said the panel was hardly representative of Italians — for starters, there were no women, she noted. "Can you imagine if the president picked 10 women? Everybody would have said, 'There's something wrong here,'" Bonino said wryly on Radio Radicale.

Bonino, touted by some to be a potential successor to Napolitano after his own term runs out next month, sounded pessimistic that the panel could come up with a formula that could unite Italy's squabbling parties. "I can remember many commissions of 'sages' in my long political career. And the results have never been very brilliant," she said.

Also skeptical was a 5-Star Movement senator, Paola Nugnes. "It still isn't clear to me what these 'wise men" have to do, and how they'll operate," she said on Facebook.

But a pro-Monti politician, Giuliano Cazzola, brushed off the skepticism.

"The only judgment on President Napolitano's action that counts will be given tomorrow by the markets," Cazzola said in a statement. "The rest is just chatter."

If the main parties fail to unite their forces behind a reform program in Parliament, Napolitano can ask a non-political figure to try to head a "government of purpose," created to last a few months or just long enough to adopt electoral reforms to improve the chances that Italy won't emerge paralyzed again by inconclusive results at the ballot box. Napolitano urged such reform for most of his seven years in office, but proposals to change the electoral law, as well as other political reform, such as reducing the number of lawmakers and eliminating state funding for political parties, went nowhere in Parliament.

One name mentioned as a possible premier for such a government of specific scope is Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri, a highly respected non-partisan figure.

View the original article here

Italy's center-left leader fails to form govt

MILAN (AP) — Italy remained in political gridlock Thursday after the center-left leader announced he had failed to form a government.

Pier Luigi Bersani, who has been talking with parties since Friday, expressed some bitterness when he told reporters at the president's office in Rome that he found "unacceptable" attempts by some parties to set "preclusions and conditions."

Bersani's attempt at forming a stable government able to help Italy out of recession and get Italians back to work was always a long shot. Bersani's coalition controls the lower house, but not the Senate, and inconclusive February elections gave strong voice to a protest party.

The next move belongs to President Giorgio Napolitano, who will hold a day of consultations Friday to "personally ascertain the developments possible," the president's secretary general, Donato Marra, said.

The failure makes more likely a possible technical government with a well-defined mission to take on urgent tasks, which include rewriting the election law, and push through some measures that have broader acceptance, like cutting political costs.

"I do believe now that the president will try to find a personality who is not so political as Bersani, possibly coming out of the left, and see if that person can find some sort of agreement to get the backing" from both the center-left and the center-right, said Giovanni Orsina, a professor of political science at Rome's LUISS University. "That is the only solution at the moment."

The Feb. 24-25 elections ended in a three-way gridlock with Bersani's center-left forces, former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's center-right forces and the anti-establishment protest movement founded by comic-turned-political leader Beppe Grillo.

Old animosities and a hardline left wing of his party forced Bersani to rule out an alliance with Berlusconi's center-right forces — a sort of grand coalition that Napolitano clearly favored. And Grillo's 5 Star Movement made clear that it wouldn't back Bersani or any established party — despite Bersani's appeal to responsibility during a meeting Wednesday.

The 5 Star Movement's apparent intransigence makes a way forward difficult. It refuses steadfastly to vote confidence in any government that it does not run, and the Italian constitution requires a vote of confidence for a government to officially take office.

The movement on Thursday proposed that Italy could continue under the caretaker government of Mario Monti, allowing the newly elected parliament to take on some urgent tasks. It was unclear if Napolitano would find that acceptable, if Monti would want to stay on, or if such a possibility were even constitutional.

Orsina said there is a limit to how long a government can continue without a vote of confidence, and this caretaker government was formed provisionally until a new government could be formed. "If we say it is not a provisional solution, that it is more permanent, I think Monti should go back to the chambers and ask for confidence," Orsina said.

Monti, whose technical government enacted emergency measures to help protect Italy from the sovereign debt crisis after Berlusconi stepped down in 2011, dissolved parliament last December after Berlusconi pulled support, paving the way to elections. More recently, he has been under pressure over his government's flip-flop over the fate of two Italian marines charged with murder in India. It first announced earlier this month the pair would not go back to face trial after being allowed home temporarily, but then sent them back anyway fearing international isolation over the move.

His decision to run in the elections, finishing fourth with a dismal 10 percent of the vote, also has sapped his authority as a technical figure.

View the original article here

Italy's Bersani tapped to form new government

ROME (AP) — Italy's center-left leader, Pier Luigi Bersani, was chosen Friday to form a new and viable government, which is badly needed to steer the country out of recession and get more Italians back to work.

The national elections last month produced no clear winner, but President Giorgio Napolitano said the 61-year-old Bersani was best positioned to create a government given "the most difficult circumstances" — a reference that the political leader has a comfortable majority in the lower house, but that the Senate is split.

The vote made plain voters' disenchantment with mainstream parties and largely divided over which forces should lead Italy at this delicate moment.

Bersani's forces finished first, but he has ruled out a coalition with former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's conservative alliance, which would risk further alienating the voting base of Bersani's Democratic Party.

But if he shuns Berlusconi, Bersani will need to win support from Parliament's new third bloc, a populist, anti-euro movement founded by comic-turned-political leader Beppe Grillo.

Grillo has rejected a vote of confidence to support any established party — and support in the required vote of confidence for a new government to go forward. Still, some Grillo lawmakers broke ranks over the weekend and voted to support Bersani's candidate as Senate speaker, a move that infuriated Grillo.

Bersani pledged dialogue with political forces in the coming days, seeking a balance between "a government seeking the change expected by the Italians and one able to carry out reforms."

Outgoing Premier Mario Monti's centrist forces finished fourth with around 10 percent of the vote. Monti, whose government took over in 2011 to enact reforms and austerity measures to safeguard Italy from the continent's debt crisis, continues as caretaker premier until a new one can be installed.

Investors are watching closely to see if Italy can form a stable government to continue on the course of reform. Italy's load of public debt has been growing, but borrowing rates have not come under pressure yet. Sentiment will be tested in a pair of bond sales next week.

Napolitano dismissed criticism that too much time has elapsed before tapping a potential leader. He noted that Israel and the Netherlands each took nearly two months to form governments. Italian elections were held Feb. 24-25, but Napolitano could not consult with leaders until after the new Parliament was seated last week and caucus leaders were chosen.

___

Colleen Barry reported from Milan.

View the original article here