Prodi Back as Italy Premier After Pact With Communists
Five days after Italy’s Communists brought down the government, Romano Prodi regained his job as prime minister Tuesday after the hard-liners made peace to keep the country on course for a single European currency.
President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro formally reinstalled Prodi as prime minister and told him to inform Parliament that his government again had a majority. It was not clear whether Prodi would ask for a vote of confidence, but with Communist support he had the votes to win it.
Details of the deal were not immediately available, but Fausto Bertinotti’s Communist Refoundation Party was expected to approve a deficit-slashing 1998 budget plan in exchange for concessions such as a 35-hour workweek. Bertinotti said the agreement would last at least one year.
“There were no winners or losers,” Prodi said.
Prodi stepped down Thursday after Bertinotti refused to back a budget aimed at qualifying Italy for the European Union’s single currency that included nearly $3 billion in pension spending cuts.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
