Letta sees stronger govt after confidence vote

(By Christopher Livesay) (ANSA) – Rome, November 29 – Since winning a key confidence vote in parliament this week, Italy will be able to go on the attack against its problems instead of playing defence as it has in recent years, Premier Enrico Letta said Friday. During a news conference in Vilnius, where Letta is attending European Union meetings, the premier said that his government is also in a stronger position to implement key political and economic reforms now that Silvio Berlusconi has been ejected from government. Letta has been upbeat about what his government can achieve since his unruly one-time coalition government partner Berlusconi was ejected Wednesday from the Senate in a long-awaited vote on a tax-fraud conviction.

Shortly before that, Letta’s government won a confidence vote on its 2014 budget in the upper house, which he said at the time gave his executive “strength, cohesion and prospects for all of 2014”. “The new trust we have (received) from Parliament will allow us to move for the first time from playing defence to going on the attack,” Letta said Friday, adding his government has been “enhanced” by its new strength. His slimmed-down government, no longer shackled by Berlusconi’s demands, will be better able to focus on the reform agenda it tabled seven months ago, the premier said. “Italy has been downgraded in recent years,” due to the deepest economic recession in 20 years, he said. But the situation is turning around, Letta added. “We have suffered heavily from the crisis (but) there are prospects for next year to come out of crises and downgrades we have suffered”.

When he was sworn in last April, Letta set himself an 18-month deadline to introduce a new election law and usher in changes to Italy’s Constitutional set-up to make the country easier to govern. Changes to the Constitution should include stripping the Senate of law-making powers and turning it into a regional assembly.

Letta has also pledged to move forward with structural reforms deemed necessary to revive an economy battered by a long recession and a decade of sluggish growth. His coalition government made little progress with these after being cobbled together to end the long deadlock after February’s inconclusive general election.

While Letta is convinced Berlusconi’s ouster from the Senate and departure from the coalition will make his job easier, polls show most Italians believe they have yet to hear the last of the three-time premier. According to a poll by the Ix