The Economic Reform Program of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is being threatened as powerful trade unions mobilize to fight proposed changes in the pension system. Leaders of the three most powerful unions will meet next week to decide what form the protest will take. Some fear a general strike similar to the one that brought down Mr. Berlusconi's first government in 1994.
See "Italian unions to challenge Berlusconi over pensions", Tony Barber, Financial Times, May 7, 2003