Italy's finance minister said at the weekend that the country needed deep structural economic reforms, giving the strongest signal yet from the centre-left government that it is preparing to fight opposition from powerful interest groups and its traditional supporters.
Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa tacitly admitted that the budget passed last year, although complying with European Union rules on budget deficits, had shied away from badly needed cuts in government spending or structural changes to pensions or education.
"We must improve the quality of government ex-penditure," he told a conference closed to the media on Lake Como. "I hope the budget passed in 2006 will be the last to cut costs in a -traditional way with limited in-depth reforms."
Mr Padoa-Schioppa criticised entrenched attitudes to reform, saying many Italians too often "think that justice and equality are the same thing". The coalition of Romano Prodi, the prime minister, ranges from the centre-left to communists and has a one-seat majority in the Senate. It has been brought close to collapse over foreign policy but Mr Prodi has so far avoided domestic reforms which could rouse intense opposition from unions and other leftwing groups.
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