Berlusconi’s Forza Italia poised to join opposition

(By Paul Virgo) (see related stories on Berlusconi) (ANSA) – Rome, November 26 – Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI) looked poised to vote against the government’s 2014 budget bill in the Senate on Tuesday, confirming the centre-right party’s move from being a party of government to the opposition.

Forza Italia has said it will pull its support for Premier Enrico Letta’s left-right coalition government if the ex-premier is ejected from parliament on Wednesday after a tax-fraud conviction was upheld by the supreme court.

But with that vote looking set to go against the 77-year-old billionaire, FI bigwigs have said the party will move to opposition over the budget package, unless major changes are made before Tuesday’s confidence vote. Berlusconi met on Tuesday with FI’s whips in the Senate and the House and they were set to hold a press conference later at around 17:00 local time. Berlusconi is furious that Letta’s centre-left Democratic Party (PD) are set to vote in favour of him being stripped of his parliamentary seat, accusing it of “political homicide”. The government has called a confidence vote on the bill to speed its passage in parliament as this limits the scope for amendments.

But there is a risk attached.

Letta’s government, cobbled together in April to end two months of political deadlock after February’s inconclusive general election, will collapse if it loses the vote. His executive should be able to stay afloat with the support of Deputy Premier and Interior Minister Angelino Alfano’s New Centre Right (NCD) party, which is made up of moderates who this month split from Berlusconi’s loyalists.

“Everything will go well,” Letta said after arriving in the northern city of Trieste for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The confidence vote, which is expected to take place at about 22.00 Italian time on Tuesday, is just part of the process to approve the budget bill that needs to be completed by the end of the year. The package has been criticised in Italy for being too timid in tax cuts and not doing enough to stoke growth, as the country seeks to emerge from its longest recession in over two decades.

There is also confusion about a new local tax to replace the IMU property tax, which was scrapped on primary residences earlier this year after a series of ultimatums from Berlusconi’s party.

Letta has said the package should be praised for cutting taxes, rather than raising them, while keeping the country on course to stay within the EU’s 3% deficit-to-GDP-ratio limit.

The European Commission (EC), meanwhile, recently said Italy risks breaking the EU growth and stability pact after analysing the budget, saying it did not do enough to bring down the country’s massive public debt of over two trillion euros, around 133% of GDP.

The government responded that the EC had failed to properly account for the government’s plans for a round of spending cuts and for divestments expected to raise 10 to 12 billion euros. “A confidence vote is the most transparent way to verify the relationship between the government and its majority in parliament, according to the rules of our democracy,” Relations with Parliament Minister Dario Franceschini said Tuesday.

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