ROME — Italy’s president appointed Enrico Letta as premier-designate Wednesday, asking him to form a coalition government representing Italy’s main parties to end two months of political paralysis and put the country back on the path of reform and growth.
Letta, a 46-year-old longtime center-left lawmaker and No. 2 Democratic Party leader, said he accepted the job knowing it’s an enormous responsibility and that Italy’s political class “has lost all credibility.”
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President Giorgio Napolitano charged Letta with putting together a coalition government of the Democratic Party and the center-right party of Premier Silvio Berlusconi, the two biggest blocks in Parliament, and said he had received assurances that both would support Letta.
“It is the only possible solution,” Napolitano said, calling Letta the figure who could rally “a broad convergence of the political forces that can assure a majority in both houses to the government.”
Letta on Thursday begins consultations on forming a cabinet that can win cross-party support and a vote of confidence in Parliament.
Letta’s improbable candidacy came after the chief of his Democratic Party, Pier Luigi Bersani, resigned after failing to form a government following inconclusive February elections and then failing to unite the party behind a candidate for president.
Bersani had refused to deal with Berlusconi, preventing the possibility of a coalition government.
Letta is a moderate figure along the lines of Bersani, to whom he has been a loyal deputy since 2009, firmly backing him in last fall’s primaries against Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi.
But he has one trump card: his uncle Gianni Letta is a close aide to Berlusconi, a relationship that could prove a key to shoring up a grand coalition among very uneasy partners.
The third-largest vote-getter in the February elections, the upstart anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, has vowed to be in opposition to any government.
Letta said his main priority was to address the “enormous, unbearable” economic emergency in the euro-zone’s third-largest economy: Italy has been in recession for over a year and unemployment is at 11.6 percent with youth unemployment at 37.8 percent.
“It is a very difficult situation, fragile, unprecedented,” Letta said. He promised as a second priority to enact a host of political reforms, including a reduction in the number of parliamentarians and a reform of the electoral law.
Inconclusive Feb. 24-25 elections left the Democrats and their allies in control of the lower Chamber of Deputies but not the Senate.
Napolitano reportedly chose Letta over Giuliano Amato, a 74-year-old two-time premier who also would have had the support of both major blocks in Parliament.
In doing so, Napolitano was giving the Democrats a chance to regroup under a new leader while answering a demand from voters for Italy’s largely discredited old political guard to give way to a new generation.
Letta’s arrival at the presidential palace to accept the job was perhaps indicative of a shift in Italy’s political class: He drove himself in his own Fiat, with car seats in the back, rather than be driven with an accompanying motorcade as most politicians use. “Auto blu,” as the chauffeured cars are known, have become the despised emblems of the privileges of Italy’s political elite.
In 1998, Letta became at age 32 the youngest government minister in Italy’s history when then-Premier Massimo D’Alema named him minister for European policy. He had other ministerial posts in subsequent center-left governments and in 2008 won a Parliament seat with the newly formed Democratic Party.
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Colleen Barry contributed from Milan.
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Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Letta, a 46-year-old longtime center-left lawmaker and No. 2 Democratic Party leader, said he accepted the job knowing it’s an enormous responsibility and that Italy’s political class “has lost all credibility.”
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Michael Birnbaum Country’s powerful industry, robust green goals at odds, with U.S. gas boom upending old calculations.
Esam Mohamed
The attack was the first against a diplomatic post in Tripoli since the war that ousted Moammar Gaddafi.
Abigail Hauslohner As Egypt’s political and economic crisis grows, Egyptians pin their hopes for recovery on old saviors.
Iraq tense after deadly raid on Sunni protest camp; Cuban dissidents collect E.U. prize, 8 years late.
Karen DeYoung Secretary of state joins NATO counterparts in Brussels for talks on alliance’s post-2014 plans.
President Giorgio Napolitano charged Letta with putting together a coalition government of the Democratic Party and the center-right party of Premier Silvio Berlusconi, the two biggest blocks in Parliament, and said he had received assurances that both would support Letta.
“It is the only possible solution,” Napolitano said, calling Letta the figure who could rally “a broad convergence of the political forces that can assure a majority in both houses to the government.”
Letta on Thursday begins consultations on forming a cabinet that can win cross-party support and a vote of confidence in Parliament.
Letta’s improbable candidacy came after the chief of his Democratic Party, Pier Luigi Bersani, resigned after failing to form a government following inconclusive February elections and then failing to unite the party behind a candidate for president.
Bersani had refused to deal with Berlusconi, preventing the possibility of a coalition government.
Letta is a moderate figure along the lines of Bersani, to whom he has been a loyal deputy since 2009, firmly backing him in last fall’s primaries against Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi.
But he has one trump card: his uncle Gianni Letta is a close aide to Berlusconi, a relationship that could prove a key to shoring up a grand coalition among very uneasy partners.
The third-largest vote-getter in the February elections, the upstart anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, has vowed to be in opposition to any government.
Letta said his main priority was to address the “enormous, unbearable” economic emergency in the euro-zone’s third-largest economy: Italy has been in recession for over a year and unemployment is at 11.6 percent with youth unemployment at 37.8 percent.
“It is a very difficult situation, fragile, unprecedented,” Letta said. He promised as a second priority to enact a host of political reforms, including a reduction in the number of parliamentarians and a reform of the electoral law.
Inconclusive Feb. 24-25 elections left the Democrats and their allies in control of the lower Chamber of Deputies but not the Senate.
Napolitano reportedly chose Letta over Giuliano Amato, a 74-year-old two-time premier who also would have had the support of both major blocks in Parliament.
In doing so, Napolitano was giving the Democrats a chance to regroup under a new leader while answering a demand from voters for Italy’s largely discredited old political guard to give way to a new generation.
Letta’s arrival at the presidential palace to accept the job was perhaps indicative of a shift in Italy’s political class: He drove himself in his own Fiat, with car seats in the back, rather than be driven with an accompanying motorcade as most politicians use. “Auto blu,” as the chauffeured cars are known, have become the despised emblems of the privileges of Italy’s political elite.
In 1998, Letta became at age 32 the youngest government minister in Italy’s history when then-Premier Massimo D’Alema named him minister for European policy. He had other ministerial posts in subsequent center-left governments and in 2008 won a Parliament seat with the newly formed Democratic Party.
___
Colleen Barry contributed from Milan.
___
Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.