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Will this evening Italy come under the renewed pressure to give clarifications about its intentions of implementing economic reforms to reduce its debts. The European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, a spokesman for Olli Rehn, in a meeting of the eurozone finance ministers said,  this evening would be addressed by Giulio Tremonti , Italy’s finance minister, on “how and when” the Italian government plans to implement a list of commitments. The European Commission has sent the Italian government a questionnaire with the questions pertaining to the details of its plan for bringing about fiscal and structural reforms to ease the concerns of the financial market over the levels of debt.

A spokesman for Rehn said, “The aim of this exercise is to provide clarity, it is not just a list of commitments.” He also said that this week the commission would send a monitoring team to Rome with the motive of assessing the progress that has been made. The Commission team will work completely independently from a similar kind of a team which is being sent by the International Monetary fund (IMF). The monitoring team will report back to the Commission in the end of November. The spokesman also said that he had hopes that the evening’s meeting and the reports that will be submitted by the monitoring team will help a great deal in clarifying the situation that is prevalent in Italy.

Currently the Italy’s centre-right coalition government under the Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, is not very stable. There are doubts after several MPs have quit the coalition government because of the failure in getting the agreement on reforms which were asked for by the European Union and the IMF. The borrowing rates of the country soared higher over the fears that the government will not be successful in avoiding a bail-out at an international level. On Monday i.e. November 7, yield on Italian ten year government bonds rose to 6.58% in trading.

However, a level closer to 7% is considered to be unsustainable. On November 6, Berlusconi said that he still commanded sufficient support to be able to get the necessary reforms passed by the Italian parliament. Thus it will also be able to prevent Italy from suffering a debt crisis of the Greek style. The reform plans of the Prime Minister include raising the retirement age from 65 years to 67 years, selling the assets of government and make it simpler for the companies to fire their employees.