By IANS/RIA Novosti,
Rome : Italian President Giorgio Napolitano started consultations Sunday with parliamentary leaders to agree on an emergency government after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resigned Saturday.
Berlusconi, 75, Italy’s longest-serving prime minister after World War II and the third-richest man in the country, had said he would resign after the parliament finally approved a package of tough austerity measures to tackle the country’s spiralling debt crisis.
After the consultations, Napolitano is expected to ask former European Commissioner Mario Monti to form a caretaker government, which will be charged with the task of implementing austerity measures to stabilise finances in the eurozone’s third largest economy.