Letta to request more time to meet EU fiscal targets

Enrico Letta to meet EU leaders in Brussels

Enrico Letta, Italy’s new centre-left prime minister, is expected to ask for more time to meet the European Union’s fiscal targets when he meets Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, and José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, in Brussels today.

The visit to Brussels was scheduled to follow talks with François Hollande, France’s president, in Paris yesterday (1 May) and Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, in Berlin the night before.

Letta outlined his government’s programme in the lower house of parliament on Monday, winning the backing of deputies in a vote of confidence. The Senate gave its approval on Tuesday. Letta pledged to shift attention away from austerity and towards economic growth. “In Europe and internationally, Italy will find strategies to boost growth without compromising the necessary process of restructuring public finances,” Letta said.

He announced the suspension of a controversial property tax introduced by the previous government, and the reversal of plans to raise the level of VAT charges. Letta also said he would seek to slash the costs of government, including ending double salaries for parliamentarians who serve as ministers. Letta said he would resign in one and a half year’s time should the necessary reforms not have started by then.

Letta took over from Mario Monti, Italy’s technocrat prime minister since November 2011, on Sunday (28 April), ending two months of uncertainty following an inconclusive election in February. Italy’s long-term borrowing costs dropped to their lowest levels in more than two years after Letta presented the government’s programme.

Van Rompuy said that Letta and his government would have “full support from the European institutions for the continuation of the necessary reforms for growth and jobs, whilst respecting sound public finances, that Italy has embarked upon”.

“The EU will continue to stand by Italy in pursuing our common commitment to overcome the economic crisis and promoting growth and jobs,” he said.

Letta will attend his first meeting of the European Council, the EU’s government leaders, on 22 May.

Click Here: cheap nrl jerseys

Grand coalition

Letta’s government, which includes the centre-left Democratic Party, Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom, and Monti’s centrist Civic Choice, is the first grand coalition in Italy since the ‘historic compromise’ between Christian Democrats and Communists in the 1970s. It also contains several technocrats in key roles, including Fabrizio Saccomanni, the general manager of Italy’s central bank, as minister of finance and economy, and Anna Maria Cancellieri, a former senior legal official and minister of the interior in the previous government, as minister of justice. Saccomanni was a close aide to Mario Draghi when the latter was the bank’s governor.

The stability of the coalition hinges on Berlusconi and his PdL. Angelino Alfano, the leader of the PdL, has been appointed to the key role of deputy prime minister and interior minister, and the party has the numbers to topple the government whenever it chooses.

Letta holds a doctorate in European law and has solid European credentials. In 1998, he served as Europe minister in Massimo D’Alema’s centre-left government – the youngest-ever minister in an Italian government – before being promoted to industry minister in 1999. In 2004, he was elected to the European Parliament, and was an MEP for two years before becoming state secretary in the office of Prime Minister Prodi.

Letta has appointed Emma Bonino as foreign minister. She was European commissioner in 1995-99 in the commission of Jacques Santer, with responsibility for health, consumer protection and humanitarian aid. She served as an MEP both before and after her time in the European Commission, in 1979-95 and 1999-2006, and was successively minister for foreign trade and for European affairs in the Prodi government in 2006-08.

Enzo Moavero Milanesi remains minister of European affairs, a position he held in the Monti government. He is a former judge at the European Court of Justice and was previously a deputy secretary-general in the European Commission.

Another minister with long European experience is defence minister Mario Mauro, a vice-president of the European Parliament in 2004-09 and leader of the Italian centre-right MEPs in 2009-13, when he switched to Monti’s camp.