Berlusconi tells Renzi to accelerate on election law

Ex-premier says centre right intends to respect pacts

(ANSA) - Rome, March 31 - Silvio Berlusconi told Premier Matteo Renzi to be "coherent" and accelerate on a deal for a new election law if he wants the centre-right leader to respect other agreements for institutional reform. "We want to see it in the Senate as soon as possible," the ex-premier said of the election bill, which has cleared the Lower House. Renzi, the leader of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), is on Monday set to get his cabinet to approve a bill to change the Constitution to reform the Senate, stripping it of its lawmaking powers and turning it into a leaner assembly of local-government representatives.

The bill will also change Article V of the Constitution to make it possible to scrap Italy's provincial administrations and take back some powers from the country's regional governments, many of which are guilty of overspending. Berlusconi, the leader of the opposition Forza Italia (FI) party, agrees with these reforms, but he wants the election bill to take priority over them.

Renzi reached deals with Berlusconi over the election law and the institutional reforms in January before he unseated his PD colleague Enrico Letta and took the helm of government.