The prime minister is his country's most successful company chairman and his ministers often sound like departmental heads, anxious to make sure the boss knows they are not sitting on their hands. Open any Italian newspaper or magazine these days and you are likely to find a Berlusconi minister talking about schemes for reform―the justice minister enthusing over leasing prisons, or the education minister explaining a plan for tax breaks for parents who send their children to private schools. This week, the cabinet issued a blueprint for constitutional reform. To the opposition's consternation, it would enhance the prime minister's powers and trim the president's. But it also envisages a range of less controversial measures: a neater parliament of 612 members rather than the present 945, in which the two chambers would play different and apparently more complementary roles; more power to the regions, which would have more control over health, schools and local policing; and a special status for Rome.
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