The Dream Government

i blog bout a 'Dream Country' in Feb 2010 where Gov Cabinet should be non politician... it is now a practice in Italy. The new PM have appointed his line-ups of futurist, strategist, educators and biz mens...

my blog: http://sharat-s.blogspot.com/2010/02/dream-country-malaysia.html#comment-form
Italy's PM news: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/16/mario-monti-technocratic-cabinet-italy


read on:



Mario Monti appoints technocrats to steer Italy out of economic crisis
Mario Monti, the former European commissioner, has been sworn in as Italy's prime minister along with the ministers of his new, technocratic government, charged with steering the eurozone's most indebted nation out of danger.

The 17-strong cabinet will be able to bring to bear on Italy's daunting problems a formidable amount of intellectual fire-power. More than a third of the seats in the cabinet will be occupied by professors, including the prime minister himself. Monti, a distinguished liberal economist, kept the finance and economics portfolios. He handed the economic development and infrastructure portfolios to Corrado Passera, the chief executive of Italy's biggest retail bank, Intesa Sanpaolo.

Three of the cabinet ministers are women, and two were appointed to top jobs: Anna Maria Cancellieri as interior minister and Paola Severino as justice minister. Elsa Fornero will have heavy responsibilities as minister for welfare and employment.

Speaking after announcing his cabinet, Monti said: "We feel sure of what we have done and we have received many signals of encouragement from our European partners and the international world. All this will, I trust, translate into a calming of that part of the market difficulty which concerns our country."

The new government took office at a time when Italy was engulfed by the eurozone crisis, with its benchmark borrowing costs at an unsustainably high level of more than 7%. The swearing in of the new government made little difference to sovereign yields but it appeared to cheer the Milan bourse which closed almost 0.8% up on a day that saw Frankfurt and London lose ground.

Monti confirmed he would take on the prime ministership after two days of consultations. The uncertainties surrounding the formation of the new government were maintained to the end by a much longer than expected two-and-a-half hour meeting between the incoming prime minister and the president.

The names on the list of his ministers – most of which were unknown to members of the Italian general public – showed that Monti had failed in his attempt to involve party representatives. His cabinet was made up exclusively of non-aligned specialists.

"The absence of political personalities in the government will help rather than hinder a solid base of support for the government in parliament and in the political parties because it will remove one ground for disagreement," he said.

The economics professor turned eurocrat managed to stave off – at least temporarily – demands from the outgoing prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and his party for the new government to have a limited programme and a fixed lifespan. The influence that Berlusconi's Freedom party will exercise over the new government was nevertheless made clear in the run-up to Wednesday's announcement.

Monti spent three hours at a meeting that finished after 2.30am, with Angelino Alfano, the secretary of Berlusconi's party, trying to reach agreement on the names of the new ministers. Berlusconi was ousted after losing his majority last week in the lower house of parliament, the chamber of deputies. But he and his former coalition allies in the Northern League can still command a majority in the senate. The prime minister will have to outline his government's programme and seek votes of confidence in both houses of parliament. The first is due to take place in the Senate on Thursday evening.

President Giorgio Napolitano asked Monti to form a government after Berlusconi's rightwing coalition lost a crucial vote in the lower house on the 2010 public accounts.

Meanwhile, Greece's new technocrat government won a confidence vote in parliament with a large majority , backing a pledge by prime minister Lucas Papademos to speed up long-term reforms and secure a massive new bailout deal involving banks and rescue creditors. In the country's 300-member parliament, 255 voted in favour of the new government formed last week by the majority socialists, rival conservatives and a small right-wing nationalist party. Only 38 voted against, while the remaining seven were absent.