Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta has called a parliamentary vote of confidence in his teetering left-right government on amid a tug-of-war over Silvio Berlusconi's legal woes.
"We evaluated a very complicated and complex situation and decided to go before parliament as soon as possible," Letta told Italian television shortly after meeting on Sunday with President Giorgio Napolitano.
The crisis was sparked when Berlusconi's centre-right People of Freedom (PDL) party pulled its ministers out of the barely five-month-old coalition government.
The shock move "created an obvious climate of uncertainty", Napolitano said in a statement after meeting with Letta for an hour-and-a-half, adding that the two agreed to seek "clarification" before parliament on Wednesday.
"We face a dramatic moment and a turning point," said Letta, of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD).
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"I will ask for the confidence of both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies ... not for three days only to start over again, but to go ahead and pursue our agenda."
The centre-left premier added: "If I do not get it, I will draw my conclusions ... I don't intend to govern at all costs."
Berlusconi, facing removal from the Senate because of a conviction for tax fraud, spurred all five PDL ministers to resign on Saturday.
The move was ostensibly sparked by Letta's refusal to discuss delaying an increase in the value-added tax while tensions were at a fever pitch over Berlusconi's legal woes.
But the Italian press put the blame for the new government crisis squarely on the billionaire media magnate, who turned 77 on Sunday.
"The convict has made Italy fail," read the headline in the leftist daily Il Fatto Quotidiano, alluding to the tax fraud conviction.
Going forward, few scenarios seem likely short of fresh elections.
But Napolitano, 88, has said he would dissolve parliament, triggering new elections, only "if there are no other solutions".
Letta's government was cobbled together following a two-month stand-off after an inconclusive general election in February. The premier had won the confidence of financial markets by managing the improbable right-left coalition.
