24 HOURS after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi tendered his resignation, Italy’s President appointed economist Mario Monti to lead the country’s new government. But the road ahead for the new premier is littered with thorns as he faces a tough challenge to take the Europe’s eighth largest economy out of financial emergency. He faces a tough battle with public and political opposition to implement the tough austerity measures that include a pledge to raise 20.6 billion US dollars from public real estate sales over the next three years besides a gradual reduction in state ownership of local services.

Soon after his appointment, Monti told reporters that Italy had to restart growing as “it is for our children to give them dignity and hope”. He said: “I want to fulfil this task with great sense of responsibility and service towards our country. Italy must meet the challenge of redemption,” reported IANS.

While Italian prime ministers normally announce waivers for people at the time of their appointment, Monti’s situation is like a warden that has to push through measures disliked by all and sundry. The reform package he needs to implement also requires an increase in the standard retirement age from 65 to 67 by 2026, sell off state-owned real estate to help raise capital, decrease the power of professional guilds seen as helping to inflate the pay for their members, privatize municipal services and lower taxes on companies that hire workers under the age of 30.

These reforms must come hard on the common man who has to wait for more time to get the employment as lesser people retire from the services. Hiring people under the age of 30 would affect the older unemployed people whose opportunities would be limited.

Investors grew increasingly anxious about Berlusconi’s leadership and fractured parliament’s capacity to come together on a package of economic reforms, sending the country’s into a debt spiral along with the other Eurozone member, Greece.

Monti enjoys the support of the country’s main opposition center-left Democratic Party and the conditional acceptance of Berlusconi’s center-right People of Freedom. While analysts are asking for tougher reforms, only time will tell how hard people and the politicians react to these reforms.