Berlusconi says accord with Renzi 'useless'

Ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi said Wednesday that continuing an accord with Premier Matteo Renzi on government reforms would be "useless". Instead of advance agreements, he said, his opposition centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party would decide for itself how to vote on each reform measure.
    "It is useless to make arrangements before," any vote, Berlusconi said in a television interview with Rai.
    "We expect to see the reforms in Parliament (and) if we believe they are the best, we will vote for them," and otherwise, FI will vote against the measure, he added.
    Berlusconi has previously hinted that his FI was close to pulling its support for Renzi's reforms aimed at overhauling Italy's costly, slow-moving political machinery.
    Renzi won the agreement of three-time premier Berlusconi for the reforms at a meeting in January, a month before Renzi toppled Enrico Letta, his colleague in the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), to become Italy's youngest-ever premier at 39.
    But more recently, Berlusconi has been alternating between criticism of the plan and pledges to uphold it.