Italians woke up this morning to the not unfamiliar sight of an ugly government crisis after prime minister Enrico Letta, accused centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi of an "irresponsible act of folly" motivated "exclusively by his personal problems".
The EU’s fourth largest economy has been rattled yet again by Mr Berlusconi, who pulled his five People Of Freedom (PDL) ministers from the Letta-led coalition government late yesterday.
Formed just five months ago after the February elections failed to return a clear majority, the coalition of Mr Letta's centre-left Democratic Party, the People of Freedom party and the centrist Civic Choice has regularly looked fragile.
Following Mr Berlusconi’s conviction for tax fraud last June, the coalition has been buffeted about by the bizarre behaviour of the former prime minister who, on alternate days, has threatened to pull it down only to withdraw the threat next day.
Mr Berlusconi refuses to accept the terms of the Supreme Court’s ruling, namely a four year prison sentence - which was reduced to one year - and a ban from public office. The crisis has accelerated greatly in the last week following his calls for all his MPs to resign, followed by this call yesterday evening for the PDL ministers to resign their government posts.
In theory, Mr Berlusconi claims that he has withdrawn his ministers because a prime commitment in the agreed coalition programme was not respected at last Friday night’s cabinet meeting when the government did nothing to stop a 1 per cent rise in VAT. In practice, that cabinet meeting was held in crisis-mode, following a remarkable mid-week tirade by Mr Berlusconi who accused his centre-left coalition partners of having a “criminal ideology” and of plotting to “eliminate” him by judicial means.
Mr Letta, normally a cool customer, called this latest tirade a "humiliation", not for him but rather for Italy. Mr Berlusconi's attack came at the very moment Mr Letta was in New York, addressing the United Nations General Assembly and investors on Wall Street, trying to present a picture of a stable Italy headed for a 2014 of guaranteed economic growth.
Mr Berlusconi’s attack inevitably made the promise of stability look rather thin.
In that context, Mr Letta refused to do any government business at Friday night’s cabinet meeting, prompting the VAT increase.
Yesterday, Mr Letta called the resignation of the five PDL ministers an “irresponsible act of folly” that had been motivated “exclusively by [BERLUSCONI’S]personal problems”.
As always in an Italian government crisis, the way forward is now far from clear. Mr Letta will meet President Giorgio Napolitano later today to draw up a "road map" that will almost certainly involve a confidence vote in parliament.
Should the Letta government lose that vote, then the next move may not necessarily be the dissolution of parliament and a subsequent general election.
Rather, Mr Napolitano could call on the prime minister, or someone else, to attempt another short term government, essentially called on to enact electoral reform. Many commentators believe that the current electoral legislation, introduced by a past Berlusconi government, is a prime factor in the current chaos.
Inevitably, with the exception of the media that he himself owns, this morning’s Italian media comment is highly critical of Mr Berlusconi.
Italy’s financial daily, Il Sole 24 Ore, owned by the Confederation of Italian Industry, summed up the mood in a front page comment: “Rather than deal with serious issues (such as unemployment and the protection of savings), he calls on “his” party to give its all in order to deal with the judicial problems of one person (himself), someone who has defended himself at three levels of judgement and who refuses to accept the final verdict. In this way he places himself (bad) and Italy (worse) beyond the confines of the rule of law”.