ITALY: Silvio Berlusconi looked to have forged only an uneasy peace among his warring coalition partners yesterday after the Italian prime minister named a new government to avoid a snap election he appeared likely to lose.
Italy swore in its new cabinet late on Saturday after three days of crisis talks aimed at mending coalition relations frayed by a bruising regional election defeat on April 3rd and 4th.
With the horse-trading over, ministers from across the centre-right coalition headed to the newspapers to express what they really felt about each other. The picture they painted showed a far from united front.
"We continue to think this was a useless crisis that only ended up wasting a load of time," the Northern League's Roberto Calderoli, who kept his seat as Reforms Minister, said in an interview with newspaper Libero. Berlusconi was forced to step down last week by two allies who demanded radical strategy changes after the centre right's regional election defeat.
Both parties, the National Alliance (AN) and the Union of Christian Democrats (UDC), returned to the government after winning assurances that it would address the problems of the south, where unemployment is at 16 per cent.
Opinion polls had predicted Berlusconi would lose a snap election if it had been called ahead of next year's deadline.
A member of his Forza Italia (Go Italy) party, Giuliano Urbani, who lost his post as culture minister, said he was glad to be out of it. "I'd had enough of this politicking, the wretched divisions, the cannibalism and foolishness," Mr Urbani told Corriere della Sera.
"How could they have opened a crisis, just a few months before the elections and after having governed for four years together? . . . What an own goal!" The new cabinet must now win a vote of confidence in parliament this week, but that should be a formality.
Saturday's overhaul saw the appointment of new health, industry, culture and communications ministers and the return to government of Berlusconi ally Giulio Tremonti as a deputy prime minister just 10 months after he was ousted in a coalition feud.
For the leftist opposition the return of Tremonti, who is close to the Northern League, showed how little had changed.
"In reality they have resolved nothing . . . It is a government a long way from what this country needs," centre-left Senate leader Gavino Angius told left-wing newspaper L'Unita.
Mario Landolfi, AN member and the new communications minister, said the shake-up was the only way to win the general election, due in mid-2006. "Through this break . . . we believe our aim to win the next elections and beat the left is not far from our door," he told La Stampa newspaper.
The coalition's woes grew out of Italy's economic troubles. Latest data suggest the economy fell into recession in the first quarter of 2005, the trade deficit is climbing and business confidence is at a 20-month low.
Berlusconi, uncharacteristically, made only a brief comment after the government was sworn in saying it was the "start of a new phase". He was furious at being forced to quit, since it denied him an unprecedented five years at the head of a single government, and has emerged from the crisis with his authority dented.