Italy crisis: PM Letta to go before parliament

Italy's PM is calling a confidence vote for Wednesday

Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta is to go to parliament to seek a way out of the crisis engulfing his coalition government.

A confidence vote will be held in parliament on Wednesday.
Relations between Mr Letta's centre-left grouping and ex-PM Silvio Berlusconi's party have reached rock bottom.
Berlusconi pulled his five ministers out of the administration on Saturday.
But those ministers have now given mixed signals as to whether they are actually leaving the government.
After meeting the prime minister, President Napolitano said the rebel ministers' equivocation had led to a "climate of evident uncertainty regarding possible developments".

The normally mild-mannered Prime Minister Letta was furious immediately after Silvio Berlusconi pulled his ministers out of the governing coalition.
But he recovered his calm and composure as he talked of his plans to ask for a parliamentary confidence vote in his administration.
He and his centre-left faction have reason to believe that Mr Berlusconi over-reached himself when he moved to torpedo the government.
Senior figures in his party have indicated that they are unhappy with their leader's decision - which was taken largely without consultation.
This kind of dissent is unusual in Mr Berlusconi's ranks. And there are signs that it has forced him to soften his stance.
He is talking now of being able to continue to back an administration run by Prime Minister Letta on certain issues.

Because of that, Mr Letta would go before parliament to see "what could be done".

Mr Letta clearly believes his centre-left grouping still has a chance of attracting enough support in parliament to continue in government, says the BBC's Alan Johnston in Rome.
President Napolitano is trying to bring about the formation of a new coalition without calling elections.
"The president of the republic dissolves the parliament only in case there is no chance of finding a majority and therefore a new government in the interest of the country," he said before Sunday evening's meeting with Mr Letta.
The crisis follows weeks of worsening ties between Berlusconi's party and Mr Letta's grouping.
Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) objects to a planned increase in sales tax, which is part of wider government policy to reduce big public debts.
But Berlusconi's legal problems had already cast a long shadow over the coalition, with the former PM threatening to undermine it if he was expelled from the Senate for tax fraud.

President Napolitano (right) called for political continuity in the country

A committee of the Senate is due to decide on his expulsion this week after the Supreme Court recently upheld his conviction.
Challenge The current coalition government was put together after inconclusive elections in February, and the latest developments come against the background of Italy's struggling economy, the eurozone's third-largest.
It is feared that the crisis could hamper efforts to enact badly-needed reforms to tackle Italy's economic problems, including debt, recession and high youth unemployment.
The International Monetary Fund has warned that coalition tensions represent a risk to the Italian economy.
Mr Letta warned late on Friday that he would resign unless his coalition cabinet won a confidence vote.

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Silvio Berlusconi's trials

• Accused of having paid for sex with an underage prostitute and of abuse of power for asking police to release her when she was arrested for theft
• Convicted of tax fraud in case focusing on the purchase of the TV rights to US films by his company, Mediaset
• Acquitted in several other cases; also convicted in several, only to be cleared on appeal; others expired under statute of limitations

• Q&A: Silvio Berlusconi on trial

But Berlusconi pre-empted that, describing Mr Letta's comments as "unacceptable". He later said all five ministers of his PDL party were resigning.

However, most of the five ministers appeared to challenge the former prime minister's order to leave the coalition.
"I thoroughly understand his state of mind, but I cannot justify or share the strategy," said Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin. Reforms Minister Gaetano Quagliarello and Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi also appeared reluctant to pull out of the cabinet.
"We want to stay with Berlusconi but not his poor advisers," Mr Lupi said.
Mr Letta had responded angrily to Saturday's resignations, accusing the PDL leader of telling Italians a "huge lie" in using the sales tax as an "alibi" for his own personal concerns.