Crunch time for over 100 Italian papers

A worrying report from today's FT which says that over 100 newspapers in Italy face closure as the country gets to grips with tightening its fiscal budget.

 According to the report the cuts in newspaper subsidies, from €170m in total to €53m budgeted for next year, were ordered by the previous government of Silvio Berlusconi,and confirmed by Mr Monti’s administration, which took office last month.

Other notable titles facing the chop include adds the report,L’Unita, the former communist party daily founded by Antonio Gramsci in 1924; Il Manifesto, an independent leftwing paper since 1969 and Avvenire, a popular Catholic daily.

Clock ticking for Berlusconi

There are rumours swirling around at the moment that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi could be on the way out.

According to the FT

Giuliano Ferrara, editor of Il Foglio and a former minister under Mr Berlusconi, said on his newspaper’s website that it was clear that Italy’s prime minister was about to resign. “It is a question of hours, some say of minutes,”

The Italian stockmarket has reacted to the news by climbing rapidly.

With Italian borrowing rates reaching a euro-era high this morning,there are doubts as to whether he commands enough loyalty among lawmakers to ensure the quick passage of deficit reduction legislation,that European and international financial officials say Rome must achieve to avoid falling victim to a dramatic debt crisis like that bringing Greece to its knees.

The PM was forced into asking the International Monetary Fund to monitor the country's reform efforts during last week's G20.

Berlusconi though appears in fighting mood.According to Corriere della Sera

a confident premier claimed that he can still command a parliamentary majority to pass the measures demanded by international bodies, despite announcements of defections in the government coalition: “In the past few hours, I have verified that the numbers in Parliament are secure”. In a telephone link to an Azione Popolare convention organised by Silvano Moffa, Mr Berlusconi said “no one in this Parliament is capable of putting together a credible alternative majority”. The prime minister was unequivocal: “Italy has to face a dual threat from speculation in the markets and from political speculators seeking to use the crisis as a shortcut to power”. He concluded: “That is why I said that our friends who are leaving the majority at this time are enacting a betrayal not of us but of Italy”.

Nevertheless,the yield on the country's ten-year bonds jumped another 0.33 this morning to 6.58 percent, its highest level since the euro was established in 1999 and closer to the 7 percent threshold that has seen Ireland and Portugal accept bailouts.

Why Berlusconi will survive

Silvio Berlusconi is under pressure over his sexual dalliances but according to Antonio Polito,editor of Il Riformista, a centre-left Italian newspaper,his job is safe.

Writing in the Independent he says that

Sexual scandals are regarded as far less serious than financial ones. Italians regard private life and sexuality very differently from the British – it would require a book to explain (and maybe even that would not be enough). The simple fact is that a man with many women is an object of admiration; this is not an attitude unique to Italy but perhaps we are less hypocritical about acknowledging it than some other nations.