Renzi says Italy must change or be EU laggards

P(ANSA) – Rome, May 5 – Premier Matteo Renzi said Monday that the government’s reform programme was necessary to stop Italy becoming one of the European Union’s worst-performing States.BR”Our ideas are not the result of improvisation,” Renzi told a seminar on the institutional reforms organised by his centre-left Democratic Party (PD).BR”We are anxious for change and we have to produce fast results or we won’t have credibility in the European Union.BR”We are certain that if Italy changes, it’ll be at the helm. Otherwise it’ll become a laggard”. Renzi, who was sworn in as Italy’s youngest premier aged 39 in February, has presented a bill to change the Constitutional to overhaul the country’s costly, slow-moving political machinery.BRThe nation’s political class and institutions have been hit by a series of corruption scandals and they have been widely blamed for failing to address the country’s economic ailments – factors seen as contributing to the rise of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, which is currently the second-top party in the polls. The central part of the reform package is to turn the Senate into a leaner assembly of local-government representatives with minimal law-making powers to make passing legislation easier.BRThe premier, who unseated his PD colleague Enrico Letta to take the helm of government, has won the support of Silvio Berlusconi’s opposition centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party for the reforms.BRBut three-time premier Berlusconi has repeatedly criticised individual parts of the package and at the weekend said it did not go far enough, adding to speculation he may eventually pull support. Renzi has staked his credibility on reforming the Senate, saying he will quit politics completely if he fails.BRThe government has, however, agreed to a delay in examining the bill in parliament as it seeks to find a compromise after criticism of it from many quarters, including parts of Renzi’s own PD.BRThis means that the target Renzi set of having the first reading of the bill in the Senate completed before the May 25 European elections will not be hit. “We wanted to take our proposal away from the electoral debate and that’s why we agreed to have the discussion on the bill on the floor of the Senate after May 25,” Renzi said. “It’s an act that is personally and politically costly to me”.BR/P
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