EU leaders make four wishes for Italy If Europe's leaders were to ask Santa Claus for a set of Italian Christmas presents, they would be four in number. First, a government after next year's election that maintains the reform path of Mario Monti, the outgoing prime minister. Second, the continuing involvement in policy making of Mr Monti, whether as premier, finance minister, state president or another influential role. Third, an absence of social unrest in response to Italy's deep, austerity-enhanced recession. Fourth, the removal of the coiled spring that causes Silvio Berlusconi, the ex-premier, to bounce in and out of politics every week like a jack-in-the-box past its sell-by date. In large part, the last three of these four items may be delivered. The real question mark hangs over the first item. It matters greatly, because the progress of Italian economic reform will be one yardstick by which to measure the eurozone's efforts in 2013 to emerge from its debt and banking sector crisis. The prospects for reform rest partly on the outcome of the election, expected in February or March, and partly on wider developments in Europe and financial markets. Latest opinion polls give an insight into why Italian politics is unlikely to supply renewed impetus for reform. On the traditional and populist right, the forces of Mr Berlusconi, the regionalist Northern League and Beppe Grillo, the anti-establishment Genoese comic, account for almost 40 per cent of the vote. None of these three agrees with the austerity and reform policy mix of Mr Monti's technocratic government. On the left, the Democratic party with 33 to 37 per cent, and the radical Left Ecology Freedom party with 5 per cent, account for another 40 per cent. About 10 per cent of voters are undecided. That leaves a mere 10 per cent for the parties of the pro-reform centre that are Mr Monti's natural allies. True, if the prime minister were to join them in a formal coalition, the centre's potential vote might double to 20 per cent. But the fact remains that the centrists will neither come close to a parliamentary majority nor garner enough votes to be the senior partner in a government with the centre-left Democrats. The Italian centre is weak for several historical reasons. After the experience of fascism, a lost war and foreign occupation, the political battle lines in post-1945 Italy were drawn principally between communism and Catholic, conservative Christian Democracy. Both left and right developed deep social and cultural roots in Italian life that left little space for the centre. Today, no group that defines itself as centrist and pro-Monti has roots to match those of the post-communist left and the conservative right. The Union of the Centre, led by Pier Ferdinando Casini, is a runt born of Christian Democracy's collapse in the early 1990s. Future and Liberty is led by Gianfranco Fini, a former post-fascist who successfully reinvented himself in personal political terms, but who lost his electorate along the way. Towards the Third Republic was launched last month by Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, a brilliant businessman but not an experienced politician. All this dims the outlook for economic reform. As a result of the centre's weakness, the election is most likely to produce a coalition government led by the Democratic party, itself a collection of disparate interest groups, some less inclined to reform than others. Outside parliament, the massed ranks of anti-reform lobbies such as Italy's professional orders and trade unions will remain potent. The momentum of Mr Monti's reforms has, in any case, been slowing down for at least five months. The government moved mountains in July to pass a labour market reform that ultimately resembled a mouse. Of a long-awaited electoral reform law - essential to remove the political obstacles to economic change - there was and is no sight. Even if it has the inclination, the next government will need great skill to balance reforms with an effort at restoring economic growth and controlling the fiscal deficit. It looks difficult. For inspiration, however, there are always the words of Virgil, the ancient Roman poet: "Fortune favours the brave."