Urgent talks to rescue Italy deal

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25 October 2011 Last updated at 21:19 GMT Silvio Berlusconi is under conflicting pressures from Brussels and his own political allies Urgent talks are being held in Italy to try to break a stalemate over economic reforms demanded by the EU.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been unable to convince his main coalition partner, the Northern League, to accept the measures - including proposals to increase the pension age.

Northern League leader Umberto Bossi has said the government was "at risk".

Rome's EU partners are demanding action to tackle Italy's huge public debt before a eurozone summit on Wednesday.

Eurozone leaders are to meet in Brussels to devise a strategy to confront the area's worsening debt crisis.

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Some suspect that France and Germany are trying to engineer Mr Berlusconi's departure ”

End Quote Gavin Hewitt BBC Europe editor They are expected to agree a plan to reduce Greece's debt burden, strengthen European banks to withstand bond losses and scale up the eurozone rescue fund.

At a meeting over the weekend, Mr Berlusconi was publicly reproached by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel who said that it was vital for Italy's public debt "to be reduced in a credible manner in the coming years".

Italy, the third largest economy in the eurozone, needs to issue some 600bn euros (£520bn; $835bn) in bonds over the next three years to refinance maturing debt.

Raising the retirement age is one of the key economic reforms demanded by the country's EU partners as a condition for supporting Italy's bonds.

But Mr Bossi has dismissed the idea, saying: "I'm not touching our pensions, which are fine, to bring up the age to 67 just to please the Germans."

Continue reading the main story David Willey BBC News, Rome

In Brussels over the weekend Mr Berlusconi was given an ultimatum - he was told to go back to Rome and produce a credible plan by Wednesday.

He passed an austerity budget back in August but it does not seem to have convinced the market.

Since then, there has been a lot of political infighting and his popularity has reached an all-time low.

There is no overall plan in Italy - neither a plan A nor a plan B - and people in Brussels are getting a bit impatient. They see that he cannot deliver, which is putting him in a difficult political position at home.

He added: "The government is at risk."

However there were signs that progress had been made in talks between the two sides late on Tuesday.

A leader in Berlusconi's People of Freedom party (PDL), Angelino Alfano, said: "We have shown today that the relationship between the two parties, which has provided stability and reforms, still holds."

As the coalition parties held meetings, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano said in a statement that the country must do everything to reduce the risk to government bonds by making its determination to cut public debt more credible.

For the first time, Silvio Berlusconi has also raised the possibility that he might step down from the political stage after dominating Italian politics for 17 years.

"I hope the conditions arise where I can leave the responsibility of the presidency to others, perhaps remaining within the party as its founding father," Mr Berlusconi is reported as saying, according to La Repubblica newspaper.

"Whatever happens I will do what my party and the coalition ask of me."

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Team Obama Issues Urgent Second Plea For Donations

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For the second time this week, the Obama-Biden campaign has dispatched an urgent plea to small donors for fast cash, raising the specter that either their vaunted fundraising bid for $1 billion is falling flat or they want to scare the competition with better than predicted quarterly takes.

Earlier this week, an E-mail from Jen O'Malley Dillon, deputy campaign manager, warned that the upcoming fundraising deadline set by the Federal Election Commission was serious. "It's not arbitrary—it's built into our campaign's budget plan. It will determine what kinds of resources we can commit to which states as we expand our ground game," she pleaded. [Read: Obama Seeks More $5 Dinners With Fans.]

Then today, another one went out from the campaigns chief operating officer, Ann Marie Habershaw, who made it sound like the campaign was hard up for coffee money.

"All the budgets, calculations, and planning lead to a simple 'yes' or 'no.' Yes, you can buy coffee and clipboards for neighborhood organizers in Ohio. No, you can't have a fancy computer when a cheaper one does the job. That sort of thing," she emailed. "Every team on the campaign has submitted their plans for the rest of this year—opening field offices, registering voters, building technology. And it all costs money. I can't say yes to everything—but what you do right now can help me say yes to more. [Read Leslie Marshall: Jobs Plan is Obama's Best Hope for Re-Election]

Is the campaign finally going into panic mode, as suggested by Democratic adviser James Carville?

Unlikely, say associates. In fact, its more just a political strategy to push donors to stop dithering and write a check so that the totals as of the September 30 deadline look big and maybe even scare the GOP. Past campaign organizers say it's a strategy that works, especially with an underdog candidate.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are getting a little nervous about Obama's fundraising. One key fundraiser told Whispers that Obama could end up with $2 billion when the outside support groups and labor unions are factored in.

"We won't be able to match him, that's for sure, but we'll have enough," said a Republican fundraiser.

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