Bossi backs Berlusconi

Umberto Bossi, Italy's firebrand regionalist leader who brought down Silvio Berlusconi's first government a decade ago, has backed the prime minister as he tries to get his present coalition behind tax cuts.

In a rare newspaper interview yesterday, Mr Bossi, who has returned home after eight months of Swiss hospital treatment for heart failure, said he had faith in Mr Berlusconi "as a man and as a prime minister".

Although ill health forced the once irrepressible populist Bossi to withdraw from the cabinet in July, he retains a key political role and his support for Mr Berlusconi is crucial amid government squabbles over the economy.

Mr Bossi, who in 1994 called the billionaire politician Mr Berlusconi "the Great Corruptor" and quit his first government, has conditioned support for the current administration on devolving power away from Rome to the regions.

Mr Bossi's Northern League party's devolution bill won its first parliamentary vote last month.

"(Berlusconi) has given me federalism," Mr Bossi was quoted as telling Italian language Swiss newspaper Il Caffe. "I was bedridden and he went to the chamber and convinced his people to vote. He kept his word."

Mr Bossi's support came at a defining time for the government. Faced with opposition from other coalition parties to tax cuts, Mr Berlusconi has threatened to seek new elections unless he gets his way.

That is a gauntlet thrown at the feet of two other coalition parties, the right-wing National Alliance of the newly appointed Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini and the Christian Democrat UDC. They fear the cuts of some €6 billion, or 0.5 per cent of gross domestic product, will push Italy's budget deficit beyond European Union limits - or else that cash will come from an electorally painful public sector pay squeeze.

The coming week will see tough talking within the coalition which, despite continuous strains, has held together since 2001, longer than any other postwar Italian government.

Mr Berlusconi won the 2001 election promising tax cuts, which he has yet to deliver in any substantial form, and a stable government. All coalition parties say they want tax cuts, but disagree sharply on how, indeed if, the cash can be found.

The UDC speaker of parliament's lower house, Pierferdinando Casini, told reporters over the weekend tax cuts were fine as long as they were "virtuous and not adventurous".