Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi {{audio|It-Silvio_Berlusconi.ogg|listen}} (born September 29, 1936 in Milan) is the current Prime Minister of Italy and is the leader of the Forza Italia political movement, a party which was established for his entry into politics.

Legislative actions

Berlusconi's government passed many pieces of legislation. Within the 2001-2003 period, the government issued: 332 bills, 184 approved laws and 148 halfway.

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Among the most far-reaching legislative actions and reforms attempted by the second Berlusconi government were:

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• The reform of the labour system, strongly opposed by labor unions,
• The reform of the school system,
• The law on large public works (MOSE project saving city of Venice, High speed railways Turin-Milan-Florence-Rome-Naples and Turin-Verona-Venice, Bridge between Sicily and Italy, underground in Rome, Parma, Naples, Turin, Milan, a strong modernisation of Highways and Water structures in South of Italy, project "Highways on the sea", etc. )
• The federalist reform, with the end of "Perfect equivalence between Chamber and senate", now at the parliament
• The reform of Justice
• Abolition of Donation and succession taxes
• The support of US foreign politics, in Afghanistan and Iraq
• The abolition of military service for all male Italians (only volunteers from 2004)
• The Urbani decree, named after the Ministro per i beni e le attività culturali Giuliano Urbani, punishing whoever circulates, even via file sharing software, a film or other copyrighted material or part of it, or enjoys it with the same technology, with a 1,500 ? fine, the confiscation of the instruments and the material, and the publication of the measure on a national daily paper and a periodical about shows. It also requires Internet service providers to signal sites violating the copyright law and to prevent the access to such sites, punishing with a 50,000 to 250,000 ? fine those ISP who don't conform., in Italian] In origin, the penalty was a 15,000 ? fine plus 4 years of imprisonment. This decree was fiercely opposed by the Italian Internet community: many Italian Internet users decided as a protest to refuse buying any copyrighted material stamped by SIAE (Società Italiana degli Autori ed Editori, "Italian society of authors and publishers" — the Italian equivalent of RIAA) throughout the month of May 2004 (the decree also proposed to furtherly increase taxation in favour of SIAE — see next paragraph), and not to use the Internet during Tuesday 25 May 2004. That day, the Italian Internet traffic was from 50% (at 06:00) to 7.4% (at 17:00) lower than the previous Tuesday. http://la5colonna.1.forumer.com/index.php?showtopic=214], in Italian] Some ADSL users even wrote letters to their ISPs threating to cancel their subscriptions if they enacted the decree. Soon the minister promised to revise the bill.

Also, well-known (because regulating aspects of every-day life) legislative acts were:

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• The increase in taxation on virgin data storage devices — this enacted an European Union directive. For example, until 29 April 2003 on a 700 MB CD-R there was a 0.01 ? taxation in favour of SIAE. Such a CD costed about 0.55 ? in average. The taxation was increased to 0.25 ?, causing the price of such CDs to rise to about 0.79 ?. This officially in order to compensate authors and publishers for gains lost due to piracy, but many critics pointed out that most regular virgin discs are used by common users for personal use, whereas people selling pirate copies often buy much cheaper contraband discs.
• The reform of rules regarding drivers' licenses, which (according to the Italian police department) led to a 14.5% decrease in car accidents, or an 18.5% decrease of lethal car accidents.
• The anti-smoke campaign with the prohibition of smoking in offices, pubs, restaurants and other public places, which came into effect in January 2005.
• The law regulating assisted fertilization, actually banning free research on staminal cells, pre-implant diagnosis, and "eterogal" fertilization, forcing women into being implanted after the embryo creation, recognising embryo as a rights bearer. The abrogation of the most controversial items has been the object of an unsuccessful popular referendum called in June 2005 by left wing parties, including Radicals, Left-Wing Democrats, Socialists, Communists.

In a controversial move, the Berlusconi government also presented a new media reform legislation. Among other things, such legislation increased the maximum limit on an individual's share of the media market, allowing Berlusconi to retain control of his three national TV channels. The legislation also enabled the roll-out of digital television and internet based publishing, and hence his government claimed it resolved the problem of conflict of interest and his media monopoly "by opening up more channels". The law was initially vetoed by the President of the Republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, on charges of being anti-constitutional, but it was then forced into law by the Parliament.

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The new pensions' law, issued on July 2004, raised the minimim age for retirement and added incentives for delayed retirement. In Italy the pensions system is facing financial difficilties due to an increasing average age of the population.

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Berlusconi has forced through the Parliament an overall constitutional reform to deepen the current federal form of the State and strengthen the power of the Prime Minister. This reform is disputed, because it has been imposed only by pressions of former separatist party Lega Nord, and without an adequate sharing with the opposition. As of May 2005, the reform has been approved by the Parliament and is in wait for the 2nd approval.

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Other pieces of legislation include:

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• the depenalization of fake balance sheets
• the suspension of penal trials for high constitution authorities during their terms (this law has been declared unconstitutional)