Crunch week for election law (3)

(ANSA) - Rome, May 29 - Italy is set for a crunch week on an election law that may lead to elections this autumn.
    Ex-premier and Democratic Party (PD) leader Matteo Renzi said a deal is possible this week with ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia (FI) and comedian Beppe Grillo's anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) on a German-style proportional-representation (PR) model with an entry bar set at 5%.
    FI has already come out in favour of the German model and yesterday M5S voters voted online to back it too.
    On Sunday evening Grillo said he was however against "compromises" and any "horse trading" with the other leading forces.
    The anti-euro, anti-immigrant Northern League attacked: "The 'Germanellum' is a shady-deal law".
    But League leader Matteo Salvini said "anything is okay as long as we vote immediately".
    FI bigwig Renato Brunetta, a former finance minister, responded by saying another previously touted law, the PD's half-PR and half first-past-the-post 'Rosatellum', was "not a c A PD bigwig and Renzi confidant, Transport Minister Graziano Delrio, said "we have to bring the forces together to frame common rules for all".
    Another PD figure very close to Renzi, Agriculture Minister Maurizio Martina, said "the objective is the maximum possible agreement".
    Small parties have come out against the 5% entry bar, which they say is too high and will block them - although the Progressive and Democratic Movement (MDP), a PD splinter group, reckon they will be able to make it. Tuesday will see a key meeting of the PD to assess progress on the law and possibly give a green light to a pact with FI and the M5S.
    Elections in the autumn, instead of at the end of the parliamentary session's natural term in February 2018, will pose the risk of needing extraordinary administration for next year's budget, pundits say.
    The PD is already gearing up to cope with this eventuality, sources in the party said.