Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano,
leader of the Democratic Party's (PD) junior government partner
the centre-right Popular Area (AP), attacked an electoral law
deal with the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S).
And amid market jitters, European Economic and Financial
Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said elections were "never
a problem".
Alfano said he did not understand "the PD's impatience to
take Italy to the vote three or four months early, in the middle
of the budget bill's passage".
A bill creating a new German-style electoral law is set to
hit the Constitutional affairs committee of the Lower House
after an agreement between the ruling centre-left PD and the M5S
on a German-style proportional representation (PR) system with
an entry bar set at 5% and no winner's bonus.
Alfano appealed to the PD and its leader Matteo Renzi, the
former premier, to save the economy from losing billions of
euros amid a fall in stock prices and a sharp rise in the spread
between German and Italian 10-year bonds.
As for the 5% entry bar, Alfano said the AP would "join with
others and get over it".
Meanwhile ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the
centre-right Forza Italia party which has already signalled an
OK to the new law, said that "if it was for me I'd put the bar
at 8%."
European Economic Affairs Commissioner Moscovici said amid
the talk of an autumn election in Italy Tuesday that "elections
are never a problem, it is a characteristic of democracy to be
in an electoral cycle" and "we are prepared to take all
decisions for all kinds of situations".
Moscovici said "we are continuing to work with the
Italian government", with "confidence and intelligence".
photo: Alfano with Renzi last year when they were respectively
interior minister and premier
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