ROME: A panel of “wise men” named by Italy’s president proposed a package of political and economic reforms yesterday, but there was little sign they would bridge the gap between feuding parties caught in deadlock since elections in February.
Italy has been left with a caretaker government for 45 days since the inconclusive elections gave no party enough seats in parliament to govern alone, while rivalries among faction leaders have made it all but impossible to agree a coalition.
In an effort to overcome the divide, President Giorgio Napolitano, whose term ends in May, named a 10-man group last month to come up with policy proposals that could serve as the basis for a broad common platform.
The panel, which includes a former head of the Constitutional Court, a member of the Bank of Italy’s board and senior politicians, proposed a range of changes to Italy’s system of government. They said red tape should be slashed, the bloated political system cut back, administration simplified and tax collection made more efficient.
Italy should also do more to help families hurt by the current recession and get more credit to small and medium-sized businesses, while sticking to fiscal austerity targets promised to European partners, the panel said.
It called for a new electoral law to replace the widely criticised current system which helped to produce the current stalemate, though it did not come up with a final recommendation for a replacement.
“The decisions are now up to the political forces, and it will be up to my successor to draw the conclusions,” Napolitano said after meeting the group.
The proposals, which have no legal force, differed little from a host of recommendations made by private economists, think tanks, industry associations and institutions including the Bank of Italy, as even some of the “wise men” acknowledged.
Maurizio Mauro, a centrist politician on the panel, said he agreed with one assessment that the recommendations amounted to “reinventing the wheel” but defended the exercise nonetheless.
“This work has highlighted a number of points which show that the things we agree on are stronger than the things which divide us,” he told SkyTG24 television. “Having said that, the parties now have to get together for the good of the country.”
The stalemate has not caused the kind of market panic feared before the election, but business leaders have been more and more vocal about the need for a government capable of tackling a recession that already equals the longest in postwar history.
Earlier this week the government was forced to raise its estimate for public debt to over 130 percent of gross domestic product this year, underlining the threat to the sustainability of Italy’s finances as the economy slumps further. “The risk Italy faces is that we relax,” said Andrea Montanino, the International Monetary Fund official responsible for Italy. “The problem isn’t just reforms, it’s implementing the reforms,” he said at the margins of a conference in Turin.
Among the panel’s proposals were cutting the number of members of parliament, reforms to the Senate and changes to party financing, although they stopped short of recommending that state funding be scrapped altogether.
Reuters
