Italy’s Berlusconi to resign, end scandal-hit era
I won’t shed a tear over this, during his term the Far Right in Italy has become excessively obstreperous.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is set to resign on Saturday after a new budget law is approved in parliament, making way for an emergency government and ending one of the most scandal-plagued eras in Italy’s post-war history.
The Chamber of Deputies was due to start a debate at 1130 GMT (6:30 a.m. EDT) on a package of economic reforms intended to reverse a collapse of market confidence that has threatened to trigger a wider crisis across the whole euro zone.
Approval is expected after the measures, which cleared the Senate on Friday, were passed unchanged in the lower house budget commission in the morning.
The definitive approval of the package by the lower house will mark the final act of the Berlusconi government.
He is expected to hold a last cabinet meeting and then go to the Quirinale Palace and hand his resignation to President Giorgio Napolitano.