Berlusconi, cabinet sworn into office in Italy

ROME (AFP) - Italian conservative leader Silvio Berlusconi and his 21-member government were sworn into office Thursday in a ceremony in Rome before President Giorgio Napolitano.

"I swear to be faithful to the republic, to respect the constitution and to exercise my duties in the sole interest of the nation," said the media tycoon turned politician, and then each of his ministers, as they took the oath of office.

Berlusconi, 71, who begins his third stint in power, has suggested that he is in a hurry to get to work on staggering problems facing Italy -- including the plight of its main air carrier Alitalia, a moribund economy and a longstanding wealth gap between north and south.

Berlusconi finalised his cabinet on Wednesday, just three weeks after scoring a strong election victory, in what commentators viewed as a signal that he was in a rush to get to work for an impatient electorate.

"It's a sign, only a sign, but it's what public opinion has been waiting for" since the April 13-14 elections, Stefano Folli wrote in an editorial in economic daily Il Sole-24 Ore. "Now the hard part begins."

The new team has shrunk to 21 ministers, compared with 26 under the previous centre-left leader Romano Prodi, and includes several familiar faces while shifting considerably to the right.

The new government will include Franco Frattini, who is leaving his post as European Union justice commissioner to become foreign minister, and Berlusconi's old ally Giulio Tremonti will return to the economics ministry.

Umberto Bossi, head of the anti-immigration, euro-sceptic Northern League party, will be a minister without portfolio charged with reforms, a post he too has held before under "Il Cavaliere" (The Knight).

Bossi's party, running in coalition with Berlusconi's People of Freedoms, doubled its strength in parliament to eight percent in last month's elections.

Three other Northern League figures were named, Roberto Maroni as interior minister, Luca Zaia in agriculture and Roberto Calderoli to the ministry dealing with simplifying the legislative process.

High on the agenda of the incoming government will be the rubbish crisis in the southern Naples region, which took on new urgency on Tuesday when the European Commission sued Italy before an EU court for dragging its feet on the problem.

Berlusconi has said the issue is his top priority, and he will even hold his first cabinet meeting in Naples.

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