Italy PM Monti raises taxes, reforms pensions in austerity drive (Reuters)

ROME (Reuters) ? Prime Minister Mario Monti unveiled a 30-billion-euro package of austerity measures on Sunday -- increasing value added tax, reintroducing a property tax, and raising the pension age -- in a drive to gain control of Italy's strained public finances.

The measures, intended to reassure financial markets which have sent Italy's borrowing costs to untenable levels, come ahead of a vital week of meetings in which European leaders race to prevent the euro zone debt crisis from sliding out of control.

Monti said the package, divided between 20 billion euros of budget measures over 2012-14 and a further 10 billion euros in measures to boost growth, contained big sacrifices, but the government had sought to spread the burden as fairly as possible.

(Reporting By James Mackenzie, Catherine Hornby and Steve Scherer)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111204/bs_nm/us_italy

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