Monti ready to lead again
Monti will not lead the moderate forces in the February 2013 election
Article added on December 23, 2012 at 14:28 Swiss time
  
Today, at his end-of-year press conference, Prime Minister Mario Monti made clear that he will not lead the moderate forces into the February 2013 parliamentary election. He is however ready to lead Italy again if needed.

Monti is a Senator for life. For the moment, he will stay away from party politics. He will not associate himself with any particular political force. Instead he announced that his Agenda Monti will be published online. The agenda is meant to be a fundament of discussion. Monti is ready to work with any party on the basis of his agenda. He made clear that he is not addressing just the right, the center or the left, but that he is willing to work with anybody ready to accept his principles. He is looking for a coalition as broad a possible. He would lead Italy again based on a coalition which approves his agenda.

Pierluigi Bersani, the leader of Italy's largest party according to the polls, the left-wing Democratic Party, already told Monti to stay out of the race. Bersani hopes to become Italy's next prime minister himself. At the end of the end-of-year conference, Monti said that Bersani was a more than legitimate a candidate for the job of prime minister.

Centrist leaders such as Luca de Montezemolo and Pierluigi Casini had urged Mario Monti to lead a centrist coalition or party into the 2013-parliamentary election. At his end-of-year press conference, Mario Monti made clear that this will not happen.

Yesterday, the Lower House adopted the 2013-budget (German article), which puts Italy on a sound fundament. However, the crucial stuctural reforms still need to be adopted. So far, Mario Monti's cabinet of expert has mainly relied on higher taxes and a few budget cuts. Still, he has managed to give back credibility to Italy's politics and especially Italy's public finances.

It will be interesting to read the details of the famous Agenda Monti once it will be published online. Mario Monti is one of the rare liberal (in the European sense) voices in Italy. The former European commissioner made clear the steps backwards would be dangerous and illusionist. Italy should instead move forwards.

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Mario Monti made clear that the property tax that he had introduced was necessary. This was an indirect attack on former prime minister Berlusconi who had promised to abolish the unpopular property tax if elected.

In the press conference, Mario Monti stressed that laws ad nazionem were better than laws ad personam. This was an attack on Berlusconi and his tailor-made laws, destined to shield him from prosecution and other legal troubles.

In the press conference, Mario Monti said that Italy needed to improve the role of women if it wanted to grow. Even this could be seen as an attack on Berlusconi. The bunga-bunga prime minister not only paid hookers for years to entertain him, he is also a master of paltry jokes about women.

On the other hand, Mario Monti reserved some praise for Silvio Berlusconi, who once nominated him as European Commissioner and who supported him for over a year as head of a cabinet of experts. However, at the end, it was Berlusconi and his Party of Liberty who withdrew their support for Monti, triggering early elections scheduled for the end of February 2013; new parliamentary elections would have taken place by the end of April 2013 anyway.

Which political parties will be able to form a coalition government in 2013? Will the mew government comply with the Monti Agenda? Will Monti even come back as prime minister? The never-ending Italian struggle for credibility will continue next year.

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