Opposition must cede something on premiership - Casellati

(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 16 - Opposition parties need to let go of something in order for agreement to be reached on introduction of the direct election of the premier by the Italian people, Reform Minister Elisabetta Casellati said on Tuesday.
    "The general discussion on the premiership touched on all the aspects covered by the bill and the possible criticalities that could be overcome," Casellati told ANSA after an initial brief discussion of the government's controversial constitutional reform bill in the Senate Constitutional Affairs Committee.
    "I always have a positive attitude because I want to believe that barriers and prejudices can be overcome," she continued.
    "I hope so, because this is the only way to build a project together. Everyone has to give up something," said Casellati, reiterating that the ruling majority has "given up a lot with the direct election of the President of the Republic, which was part of our programme".
    "I am waiting to see what the opposition is prepared to give up," she added.
    Under the current system in Italy, parties engage in government-formation talks after a general election and then the coalition that forms a ruling majority in parliament agrees on a figure to propose to the President of the Republic to become premier.
    That figure is not necessarily one of the politicians given by the parties as their premier candidate during the election campaign.
    The centre-left opposition Democratic Party (PD) has slammed the proposed reform as "dangerous", saying that it "weakens parliament and the prerogatives of the President of the Republic".
    PD Secretary Elly Schlein has described it as "a distortion of the Constitution and the parliamentary Republic".
    "We will use every available dialectical tool in parliament to oppose a project that we consider to be dangerous," she continued.
    Leading Constitutional experts Sabino Cassese and Antonio Baldassarre have called on the government to abandon its plans to introduce the direct election of the premier and begin a process of constitutional reform that is shared by the opposition. (ANSA).