Italians need to make sacrifices: Monti

Newly-elected Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti says Italians would have to brace themselves for sacrifices in the months ahead.

Against the backdrop of the international financial instability that was threatening the euro currency and with the world's attention on Italy, Monti, an economist and former European Commission member said his government would work to change Italy's labour market and pension system, fight tax evasion and make it easier for businesses to grow.

However, he also urged Europe to understand what was at stake if it left Italy to its own fate.

Monti said the future of the euro depended on what Italy did over the next few weeks. He warned that the end of the euro would unravel the single market, its rules, its institutions, and would take Europe back to where it was in the 1950s.

He called upon lawmakers to back his ''government of national commitment.'' His government would receive a vote of confidence later from the senate and the lower house.

Monti said in a stark admission that Italy was in economic difficulty and needed to act fast to strengthen its own finances and, by extension, shore up the euro. This came in sharp contrast from the tenor of the earlier government, then under Prime Mminister Silvio Berlusconi, in which admission of the countries economic woes was considered disloyalty.