Foreign buyers are swooping on deserted villages in Sicily to snap up homes for as little as 10,000 euros ($13,000), propping up a property market in freefall as Italy suffers its longest-ever recession.
Silvio Berlusconi affirmed over the weekend his centre-right movement's loyalty to the grand coalition government of Prime Minister Enrico Letta at a rally in a northern city which attracted noisy support and dissent.
Finance ministers and central bank chiefs from the Group of Seven leading economies will meet in the English countryside on Friday for talks on spurring growth, amid US-Europe divisions over the scale of austerity.
Italy's new Prime Minister Enrico Letta was set to unveil his coalition government's programme on Monday, under the watchful gaze of international markets and European partners.
Italy's new coalition government was sworn in on Sunday, but a ceremony symbolising a fresh start for the recession-wracked country was overshadowed by a shooting outside government headquarters.
An Italian leftist politician, Enrico Letta, was nominated to be the new prime minister on Wednesday, bringing to an end a bitter two-month deadlock on forming a new government.
Voting for a new Italian president headed towards a fifth round Saturday, after the political deadlock claimed another victim, with centre-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani saying he will step down.
Italian lawmakers meet on Thursday to begin voting on a new president in a key step that could end a two-month impasse between political parties that has blocked the formation of a new government.
Controversial plans to revive the EU's faltering carbon cap-and-trade system so as to cut greenhouse gas emissions face a tough test in the European Parliament.
Italy's Silvio Berlusconi said he could consider supporting a candidate for president from his rivals on the left but only on condition that they form a grand coalition government with him.