Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is preparing to create a powerful new centre-right party called People of Freedom.
Thethree-day founding congress of the bloc will formally fuse MrBerlusconi’s Forza Italia with the “post-Fascist” National Alliance ofGianfranco Fini.
The coalition will unite two of the three main Italian groups on the right.
Mr Fini used to be politically close to the ideology of Italy’s wartime Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
Butsince the end of the 1990s the National Alliance has shifted towardsthe mainstream of Italian politics and Mr Fini has distanced himselffrom Mussolini’s policies.
He dissolved the National Alliance – created in 1995 – at a congresson 22 March. He is currently Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, thelower house.
In elections last April Mr Berlusconi, a media tycoon and Italy’s richest man, won a third term as prime minister.
ThePeople of Freedom (Il Popolo della Liberta) coalition is expected tomake the Italians a stronger force in the European Parliament’s largestparty grouping – the conservative EPP-ED – after the June Europeanelections.
The right-wing Northern League has opted to stay outside the People of Freedom.
