Silvio Berlusconi has made an unscheduled trip home to Milan for an apparent meeting with his family, but Europe’s longest-serving leader denied reports that he was to step down within hours.
The Italian Prime Minister has come under pressure from his own People of Freedom (PdL) party to step aside in advance of a budget vote in Parliament tomorrow that could prove that he has lost his majority.
Ten-year Italian/German government bond yield spreads soared to their highest since 1995, at 491 basis points, as the markets took aim at Italy after the political deal in Greece.
Mr Berlusconi, who has led Italy for half of the past 17 years, is understood to have been told by his closest aides after returning from the G20 summit in Cannes on Friday night that he had 72 hours to save his Government — a deadline that expires today.
But the veteran showman apparently has denied that he is about to step down.
“Rumours of my resignation are baseless and I do not understand how they started circulating,” Mr Berlusconi was quoted as telling his aides, according to the Ansa news agency.
Mr Berlusconi later posted on his Facebook page: “The rumours of my resignation are without foundation.”
Although he told a party meeting by telephone on Sunday that he was sure he could still muster a majority, his Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, a member of his Northern League coalition partner, said later on television that he no longer had the votes.
Two prominent right-wing journalists, at rival publications, reported this morning that Mr Berlusconi’s resignation was imminent.
“Now I have live news. Berlusconi is quitting,” Franco Bechis, deputy editor of Libero, tweeted.
He added several minutes later: “The PdL had asked him to do it today, but he said ‘no’ because he had a private appointment in Milan. Either this evening or tomorrow morning!”
Giuliano Ferrara, Editor of Il Foglio and a friend of the Prime Minister, wrote in his online edition that Mr Berlusconi was about to step down. “That Berlusconi is about to make way is now clear. It’s a question of hours, some say even minutes.”
Mr Berlusconi, who headed for his villa at Arcore outside Milan, scene of his now-infamous “bunga bunga” parties, planned to return to Rome tonight.
The Government will almost certainly win tomorrow’s budget vote because Giorgio Napolitano, the President, has asked that the crucial appropriations Bill go through.
But Mr Berlusconi faces a planned mass abstention by the Opposition and as many as 40 rebels within his own party, which is likely to show that he no longer commands a majority.
Opposition leaders say that if he still refuses to step down they will present a formal motion of no-confidence this week or early next week.
If Mr Berlusconi goes, Mr Napolitano is expected to ask a technocrat, probably the former EU commissioner Mario Monti, to try to form a new government to enact EU-mandated reforms.
Gianni Letta, Mr Berlusconi’s chief of staff, was asked what would happen if the Government fell.
“There is the principle of the continuity of administration,” he said. “With the passage of one government to another, which is not what we are hoping for, the undertakings already assumed will continue.”
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article3218767.ece
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