Italy: President Elected, Red Brigades Resurrected

Union. For alle these reasons his election was now the well-deserved reward for his merits.

Italy's prime minister Massimo D'Alema nominated follower of Ciampi as minister of Treasury and Budget the former Socialist prime minister Giuliano Amato, who will have no simple task in guaranteeing Italy's financial duties in the European Monetary Union. European partners have already shown their impatience, when Amato had to admit that his country wasn't able to respect all the promises made by his predecessor.

New hopes for Constitutional reform

Another effect of the surprising agreement between majority and opposition on the president's election was the rise of new hopes for Constitutional and electoral reforms. Until now these reforms have always been thwarted by minor parties. By some means the agreement between D'Alema and Berlusconi was now some kind of revenge of the major parties and the more convinced reformers, who had seen their (though limited) reform plans vanished by the failure of the electoral referendum in April. When Italian politics seemed definitely destined to sink again in the swamp of pork barrel policy, the reformers' coalition has in some way re-compacted around the election of the new state president.

Ciampi has recognized this aspect of his election, introducing his presidency with a round of talks on the possibilities of Constitutional reforms with all party leaders. The first result of these consultations held at the end of May was however to postpone any decision after the forthcoming European elections on June 13th.

The European test

Since these elections are by now the only ones to be held with a pure proportional system, all Italian parties give absolute priority to this electoral test and everybody is hoping to enforce his own positions by a good result. Since a major voters shift cannot be excluded, the electoral result is quite probable to have even negative consequences on Italian government stability. Opposition leader Berlusconi has already asked for the resignation of the government, if the majority parties should reach less than 40 %. Inside the majority coalition as well as among the opposition parties, the results will surely decide on the future strength relations inside both camps. Thus political stability seems still out of reach and endless party talks are due to prevail for another while in Italian politics.

Under these circumstances the example of efficiency and responsibility given with the presidential election is therefore even more astonishing. Only a few days after Ciampi's appointment it

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