Italy's president assigns facilitators for solving political impasse

ROME, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on Saturday charged 10 authoritative experts and political figures with the task to help solve the political impasse stemmed from last month's inconclusive general elections.

The figures included the former president of Italy's Constitutional Court, Valerio Onida, the head of national statistics institute Istat Enrico Giovannini, as well as leading politicians belonging to the main forces in parliament.

Giovanni Pitruzzella, the chairman of Italy's Competition Authority, Salvatore Rossi, a member of the Central Bank's governing board, and Enzo Moavero Milanesi, Minister for European Affairs of the outgoing technocratic government of Prime Minister Mario Monti, were also among what observers called "the facilitators."

Napolitano's decision came following intensive but fruitless meetings with parties on Friday to try to reach consensus after Pier Luigi Bersani, whose center-left coalition was the most voted in the Feb 24-25 general elections, failed to persuade the other forces to support a center-left led government.

Earlier on Saturday, Napolitano said two groups with "political-institutional and socio-economic" nature would start working Tuesday on a sort of programmatic report while helping him find consensus on a new government.