Berlusconi faces mounting pressure to resign

PRESSURE mounted on Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to quit yesterday as six former parliamentary loyalists called for a new government and the squabbling cabinet failed to agree an urgent economic reform program.

The rebel deputies, three of whom have already left Berlusconi’s coalition, wrote to the premier saying: “We are asking you to take an initiative which is appropriate to the situation”.

“Be the backer of a new political phase and a new government which would have the task, from now until the end of the legislative term, of implementing the agenda agreed with our European partners and with it, the indications which came from the European Central Bank., said the letter published in the daily Corriere della Sera.