ROME, April 25 (Reuters) – Italy’s prime minister-designate
Enrico Letta started “encouraging” talks on Thursday for a new
government to end two months of political deadlock, but said
significant differences with the centre-right would take more
time to iron out.

Letta, the 46-year-old deputy head of the centre-left
Democratic Party (PD), said he would use Friday as a “day to
reflect” on his chances of piecing together a broad coalition to
govern the euro zone’s third-largest economy.

ROME, April 24 (Reuters) – Italian President Giorgio
Napolitano on Wednesday asked centre-left deputy leader Enrico
Letta to form a new government, signalling the end of a damaging
two-month vacuum since elections in the euro zone’s third
largest economy in January.

The prime minister designate is expected to quickly select a
group of ministers, mixed between politicians and technocrats,
under the guidance of Napolitano, whose own unprecedented
re-election last weekend opened the way for an end to the
crisis.

ROME, April 24 (Reuters) – Italian President Giorgio
Napolitano on Wednesday asked centre-left deputy leader Enrico
Letta to form a new government, signalling the end of a damaging
two-month vacuum since elections in the euro zone’s third
largest economy in January.

The prime minister designate is expected to quickly select a
group of ministers, mixed between politicians and technocrats,
under the guidance of Napolitano, whose own unprecedented
re-election last weekend opened the way for an end to the
crisis.

ROME (Reuters) – Newly re-elected president Giorgio Napolitano delivered an emotional rebuke to Italy’s warring political factions on Monday and announced talks that could see a grand coalition government formed within days to end two months of post-election stalemate.

The 87-year-old Napolitano said he had only accepted an unprecedented second term as head of state because of the “dramatic alarm” facing Italy since national elections on February 24 and 25 left no party able to govern alone.

ROME (Reuters) – Newly re-elected president Giorgio Napolitano delivered an emotional rebuke to Italy’s warring political factions on Monday and announced talks that could see a grand coalition government formed within days to end two months of post-election stalemate.

The 87-year-old Napolitano said he had only accepted an unprecedented second term as head of state because of the “dramatic alarm” facing Italy since national elections on February 24 and 25 left no party able to govern alone.

ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s newly re-elected president Giorgio Napolitano will push forward on Monday with efforts to form a new government and end two months of stalemate that blocked economic reform and created growing unease among Rome’s international partners.

Financial markets opened higher, with the main barometer of investor confidence, the spread between yields on 10-year Italian bonds and their safer German counterparts, narrowing sharply and Italian stocks among the main gainers across Europe.

ROME (Reuters) – One week ago, with his office in the Quirinale Palace already cleared of his books and papers, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano said: “They won’t convince me to stay”. In the end they did.

Just over two months before his 88th birthday, Napolitano yielded to the pleas of Italy’s squabbling politicians and agreed to a second term in office to try to end the chaotic stalemate left by February’s deadlocked election.

ROME (Reuters) – Center-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani announced his resignation on Friday after party rebels sabotaged two separate candidates he had backed for state president, deepening Italy’s political chaos.

Bersani told a meeting of parliamentarians he would quit as Democratic Party (PD) leader as soon as the election of the next head of state was completed, following two dramatic days of parliamentary voting in which successive center-left candidates were scuppered in secret ballots.

ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s parliament failed to elect a new state president in its first vote on Thursday, with divisions in the center-left alliance torpedoing a quick victory for its official candidate Franco Marini.

Marini, a former Senate speaker, won just over 520 votes, well below the required two thirds majority or 672 of the 1007 members of both houses of parliament and regional representatives in the presidential poll.

ROME, April 18 (Reuters) – Italy’s divided parliament began
voting for a new state president on Thursday, with the
centre-left alliance led by Pier Luigi Bersani deeply split over
the choice of former Senate speaker Franco Marini as their
candidate.

Bersani nominated Marini, a prominent Catholic and former
head of the moderate CISL union, in order to forge a broad
accord on the presidency with centre-right leader Silvio
Berlusconi and the small centrist grouping of caretaker Prime
Minister Mario Monti.