Likely PM to face tough challenges
MATTEO RENZI is one step from becoming Italy’s youngest- ever prime minister after swiftly dispatching Enrico Letta in a party coup, but the manner of his political triumph could make it harder to carry out the bold reforms needed to resurrect the country’s economy.
After Renzi and the rest of the Centre-Left Democratic Party (PD) leadership forced Letta to quit by withdrawing their support at a special meeting on Friday, the prime minister handed his resignation to President Giorgio Napolitano.
Napolitano will hold two days of consultations leading to the appointment of a successor. The 39-year-old Renzi, whose PD is the biggest party in parliament, could be named premier soon.
Renzi, who would be the third Italian prime minister in a row to be appointed without winning an election, faces intense pressure to achieve the structural reforms that have eluded Italy for years.
Though he has long been agitating for sweeping change in Italian politics and won a landslide victory for his party’s leadership in December, few had expected him to snatch power from Letta so soon.
Renzi’s decision to bring down the prime minister matured over the past fortnight, according to people close to him, after mount- ing pressure from unions and Italy’s business lobby, which have criticised the Letta government for not doing enough to help the country’s struggling corporate landscape. Renzi has shown himself a decisive, even ruthless political tactician but the structural problems that have made Italy one of the world’s slowest growing economies over the past two decades will be a tougher challenge than sidelining rivals.
Over the whole of 2013 the economy, the thirdlargest in the 18-member eurozone, contracted by 1.9 per cent, after a 2.6 per cent drop the year before.
Gross domestic product has shrunk around 7 per cent in the last five years and industrial output has fallen by 25 per cent. Hundreds of thousands of companies have gone out of business and in the southern half of the country less than half of the working-age population has a job.
Business leaders have called for quicker reforms, with an attack on stifling bureaucracy and a reduction of the heavy tax burden on employers.
Boosted by his sweeping victory in the PD leadership primary last year, Renzi has promised a radical programme but acknowledged that he faces serious challenges.