Letta tells US viewers he ‘understands’ Obama problems
(ANSA) – Washington, October 17 – Italian Premier Enrico Letta said he sympathized with United States President Barack Obama in a television interview ahead of a meeting at the White House Thursday.
Letta is in Washington D.C. for a bilateral meeting with Obama and he will also have a working lunch with the president and Vice President Joe Biden.
“It is not easy (for outsiders) to understand,” Letta said referring to raging political fight over the US budget, and how lawmakers could allow prolonged, crippling deadlock that shuttered the federal government for three weeks and brought the nation to the brink of default.
“But I can understand it because I, too, have my problems at home,” Letta added during an interview with the US public television network PBS.
“I know what it means when there are clashes between factions, parties and individuals and (under these circumstances) it is not easy to reach political agreements”. Letta’s government presented the Italian 2014 budget bill late Tuesday and came under immediate fire by politicians, unions and industry leaders. Budget bickering was also a factor in Italy’s political crisis early this month, in which the centre right threatened to scupper the grand-coaltion government, but backed down at the last minute following a mutiny within ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party.