ROME — Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti warned against a slide into populism on Tuesday as Silvio Berlusconi stepped up attacks on his technocrat government, accusing it of following failed “Germano-centric” policies. Financial markets have pushed Italy's borrowing costs higher since Monti said he would quit after Berlusconi's party withdrew support for his administration. Italy's financial crisis has threatened the stability of the euro zone and Monti's European allies want it to continue with fiscal discipline and reforms they believe helped the zone's third-biggest economy avoid a Greek-style collapse. Berlusconi, Monti's flamboyant predecessor as prime minister who was driven from office last year by the crisis, says he will run for a fifth term to end the recession. On Tuesday, he dismissed nerves in financial markets, saying the main gauge of investor trust in Italy, the spread between Italian bonds and their safer German counterparts, was “a con”. “The Monti government has followed the Germano-centric policies which Europe has tried to impose on other states and it has created a crisis situation much worse than where we were when we were in government,” Berlusconi said in an interview on his own Canale 5 television network. He accused Germany of deliberately profiting from the crisis which brought down his government last year to reap speculative profits and lower its own borrowing costs. Monti, an economics professor drafted in to head an unelected government, plans to resign once next year's budget is passed in parliament and has not said what he will do then. — Reuters
