Premier Matteo Renzi on
Tuesday got a standing ovation as well as opposition jeers while
presenting his 1,000-day reform program in successive speeches
before each house of parliament.
He told the Lower House that his government's 1,000-day
reform programme was Italy's last chance to make up for wasted
time that should have been used to combat the country's economic
decline.
"I am willing to lose popularity to carry out reforms,"
added the premier, the leader of the centre-left Democratic
Party (PD).
"The severity of our approach stems from the strong,
widespread awareness that at the end of this road we will not
only have turned around the current parliamentary term, we will
also have put Italy back on track".
He touched on all the major points of his sweeping reform
package, which seeks to overhaul Italy's justice system,
electoral law, schools, and labor laws in an effort to modernize
the country, cut red tape, attract foreign investments, and pull
the country out of what is its longest postwar recession and its
third in six years.
A new jobless benefits system must be in place as of 2015,
and while the government wants to reduce the cost of labor, this
does not mean it will reduce wages, he told the Senate.
"Our labor law needs radical change, so that ideological
derbies no longer take center stage," he said. "We must also
simplify jobless benefits rules, and guarantee unequivocal and
identical safeguards for all".
The government's reforms will help Italians "make peace"
with their civil justice system, Renzi went on.
He also promised to ensure that judges are able to do
their work without harassment - including from media outlets.
"We will fight in every quarter for judges' right to
autonomy," Renzi said.
He went on to say that while a snap election would almost
certainly benefit his Democratic Party (PD) party, Italy comes
first.
"We think that the country's interests comes before a
party's needs," he said as the PD rides higher than ever in
opinion polls thanks to the young premier's reformist drive.
The latest poll showed the PD well ahead of all other
parties with 40.5% support, while Beppe Grillo's
anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) stood at 21% and Silvio
Berlusconi's center-right Forza Italia party garnered 15.5%.
Renzi went on to to tell the Senate that although the
Italian economy has stopped falling, it may be some time before
healthy growth resumes. Lawmakers must look beyond the short
term, because the entire eurozone is stagnating and action is
needed to kick-start growth.
And while his remarks on reform garnered him a standing
ovation in the Lower House earlier in the day, as he spoke
before the Senate the premier was forced to raise his voice as
members of M5S frequently shouted "shame" while giving him the
thumbs-down signal of rejection.
Renzi at one point paused in describing his planned
economic reforms to retort, "I understand that someone is afraid
of voting".
Senators from the separatist, xenophobic Northern League
party brought gelato in reference to a recent cover story in
Britain's The Economist, which focused on the serious problems
within the eurozone economy.
On the cover, Renzi was pictured eating an ice cream aboard
a sinking boat along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and
French President Francois Hollande, with European Central Bank
(ECB) President Mario Draghi bailing out the boat.
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