Italian president dismisses speculation to bring down Berlusconi in 2011

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on Tuesday dismissed media speculation that he plotted to bring down the government of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in 2011. In a letter published on Corriere della Sera newspaper, Napolitano said "the true facts of the country's history in 2011 are well known and undisputed, and they can be summarized in an increasing attrition within the then government majority resulting from the 2008 election." The Italian president made the remarks in response to reports published by Corriere della Sera and Financial Times a day earlier that he sounded out Mario Monti in the summer of 2011, months before the economy professor replaced Berlusconi at the helm of Italy in November that year. Monti formed the technocrat government charged with steering the eurozone's most indebted nation out of an escalating economic crisis. His mandate ended in April 2013 after the emergency cabinet introduced a series of painful austerity measures. Napolitano said he had appreciated Monti's pro-European commitment early in the previous years and he considered the professor a "valuable reference point for his analysis and comments on economic and financial policy." "He was then for me - and certainly not just for me - a resource to be taken into account and, if necessary, to be asked to take on the responsibility of the country," Napolitano said in the letter. Napolitano, a member of the former Italian Communist Party who gained a reputation for impartiality, has been the object of frequent political attacks after last year he became the first president in the Italian history elected for a second mandate to end post-election deadlock. A parliamentary committee on Tuesday rejected an impeachment petition from the anti-establishment Five-Star Movement (M5S) which accused the Italian president of failing in his role of being an independent arbiter of the country's politics. The committee backed a proposal presented by the center-left Democratic Party (PD) of Prime Minister Enrico Letta, the biggest group in parliament, for the impeachment proceedings against Napolitano to be dropped.