Italy: Giorgio Napolitano asks Matteo Renzi to form new government

Matteo Renzi, the mayor of Florence, has been asked by President Giorgio Napolitano to form a new government in Italy.

Enrico Letta resigned as prime minister on Friday, after he was ousted in a vote called by Matteo Renzi at a meeting of their centre-left Democratic Party.

Matteo Renzi, who has never been elected as MP, will now have to come to a deal with Enrico Letta’s former coalition partners.

He will begin talks on Tuesday and could be sworn in on Thursday.

Matteo Renzi would become Italy’s youngest ever prime minister, two months younger than Benito Mussolini when he came to power in 1922.

In a separate development on Monday, Italy’s borrowing costs dropped to their lowest rates for almost eight years. Ten-year debt bonds fell to 3.64%, seen as an apparent nod from the markets towards Matteo Renzi’s plans for economic reform.

Matteo Renzi, the Democratic Party leader, spent some 90 minutes in talks with President Giorgio Napolitano in Rome on Monday morning.

Constitutional changes would be put forward by the end of February, labor reforms by March and improvements to bureaucracy the following month.

“The most pressing emergency, which concerns my generation and others, is the emergency of labor, of unemployment and of despair,” Matteo Renzi told reporters.

Democratic Party colleague Maria Elena Boschi said it would take several days to form a new administration.

After being sworn in by the president, Matteo Renzi would need to win votes of confidence in both houses of parliament.

Matteo Renzi, 39, helped to engineer Enrico Letta’s ousting as prime minister after questioning the performance of his coalition government and accusing him of failing to implement promised reforms of what is seen as an often corrupt and wasteful bureaucracy.

Enrico Letta had come under increasing pressure over Italy’s poor economic performance and Matteo Renzi argued that a change of government was needed to end “uncertainty”.