Mario Monti is in talks with centrist groups urging him to stand in Italy’s elections early next year, it emerged yesterday as pressure mounted on the technocrat prime minister from the financial markets, fellow European leaders and the Church to stay in politics to safeguard his reforms.
Italy’s borrowing costs rose and its stock market fell sharply after his decision on Saturday to resign rekindled uncertainty over one of the eurozone’s more vulnerable economies.
Mr Monti, whose economic reforms have steered Italy out of the centre of the eurozone’s sovereign debt crisis in the past year, said he would step down when the budget is passed, possibly this month, triggering an election in February.