BBC News with Sue Montgomery

The Italian senate has approved a long-delayed economic reform package demanded by the European Union to end the country's debt crisis. The final vote is expected in the lower house over the weekend. Parliamentary approval of the package should lead to the promised resignation of the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. From Rome, Alan Johnston reports.

Italy's politicians are desperate to show that they are responding urgently to the economic crisis, so they are racing this austerity package through the two houses of parliament. The measures include moves to sell off state assets and changes in the tax and pension regimes. But this may be just the start of wider and deeper efforts at reform. It's expected that the new government will be led by Mario Monti, a tough well-respected economist. And he's thought likely to cut back on the cost of the bureaucracy that weighs heavily on business here and to challenge vested interests in the professions and elsewhere.

The new Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos has been sworn in as the head of an interim coalition government that'll try and push through the bailout package agreed with European leaders last month. Evangelos Venizelos stays on in the key post of finance minister while the foreign ministry goes to the former opposition.