‘Italy must be strong again’

Former European comissioner Mario Monti was nominated yesterday to replace Silvio Berlusconi as head of a new Cabinet charged with battling an unprecedented crisis in the eurozone’s third largest economy.

“Italy must again be increasingly an element of strength, not weakness in a European Union that we helped found and in which we should be protagonists,” the 68-year-old economics professor told reporters.

After receiving the nomination from President Giorgio Napolitano, he said he would work “to get out quickly of a situation which has elements of an emergency but which Italy can overcome with a united effort”.

Mr Monti received the mandate to form a government yesterday after hours of political talks but its exact composition is set to be unveiled in the coming days before a confidence vote in Parliament formally gives it power.

Silver-haired Monti received endorsements from Mr Berlusconi’s centre-right People of Freedom (PDL) party and the main opposition centre-left Democratic Party (PD).

“We have agreed to the nomination of Professor Monti,” PDL leader Angelino Alfano told reporters after the talks. PD head Pier Luigi Bersani said he supported “an emergency, tran-sition government of technocratic character”.

Mr Napolitano has raced against time to have the beginnings of a new government in place by the time financial markets open on Monday, when Italy will face its first bond auction test since Berlusconi’s exit amid high borrowing costs.

A defiant Berlusconi meanwhile said he would “redouble” his efforts in Parliament “from tomorrow”. “I will not give up until we have succeeded in modernising Italy,” he said in a video message broadcast on Italian television. Hundreds of supporters rallied in front of Berlusconi’s residence in Rome, a day after thousands of people partied in the streets of the Italian capital booing the scandal-tainted premier and cheering his resignation.

In his first comments since stepping down, Berlusconi wrote a letter to a small conservative party saying he wanted to work on a “path to government” and issuing scathing comments about the parliamentary revolt that toppled him.