Umberto Bossi of the Lega Nord, refuses Berlusconi pension negotiating authority!

Not only does any EU rescue passage now have to negotiate the German Bundestag before tomorrow's meeting, but Umberto Bossi, the Italian Governing coaltion partner for Berlusconis, is also reported causing problems, read from here.

The IMF is still being reported as having difficulties with the second Greek Bail Out package, and no definitive press statements seem forthcoming from that source, although business stateside should now be well underway.

More comes on Italy, at the conclusion of an FT Alphaville blog, linked here:

...... there is a second stumbling block en route to more ECB involvement, and that is the ECB itself. According to the same article Trichet is dead set against it, but here's the thing, he is leaving and his successor, Mario Draghi is Italian.

With Italian debt very much in the epicenter of this it remains to be seen whether he will hold out if the EFSF as an insurance fund won't stem the crisis in the Italian bond market and the Germans soften their resolve against more ECB involvement if Italy delivers on reforms and austerity.

So it all boils down to Berlusconi in the end. He could gamble on this and not introduce vote costing reforms, but on the other hand, he's going out of politics anyway and could go down in history as the man who saved the euro, rather than as the epicenter of 'Rubygate'