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U.S. stock futures are falling as traders close out what could be the worst quarter since the peak of the financial crisis.

Fears about a European debt crisis with potentially catastrophic consequences have weighed on markets since the spring. Economic data are mostly weak. Major stock indexes have fallen more than 10 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index is down 12 percent _ the most since the final quarter of 2008.

The government reports before the market opens on consumer spending and personal incomes in August easy to get unsecured personal loans. Economists expect spending edged up after rising in July.

At 7:33 a.m. Eastern time, S&P 500 futures were down 14, or 1.2 percent, at 1,143. Dow futures were down 118, or 1.1 percent, at 10,981. Nasdaq 100 futures were down 22, or 1 percent, at 2,168.

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Under pressure from skeptical financial markets, the world’s economic powers scrambled on Saturday for ways to keep Europe’s debt crisis from spiraling out of control.

The continent’s financial woes grabbed the attention of the policy-setting committees of the 187-nation International Monetary Fund and the World Bank during the lending institutions’ annual meetings.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the IMF panel that the debt crisis posed the most serious threat to the global economy and that failure to take bold action raised the risk of domino-style defaults by heavily indebted European countries.

He said the European Central Bank should try to ensure that governments pursuing sound reforms could get loans at affordable rates and that European banks have access to the capital they need to operate. The ECB is the central bank for the 17 nations that use the euro as a common currency.

Global financial markets plunged this week on fears of a possible default within weeks by Greece on its government debt and on worries a default would cause runs on major European banks with heavy exposure to Athens’ debt.

“The threat of cascading default, bank runs and catastrophic risk must be taken off the table. Otherwise, it will undermine all other efforts, both within Europe and globally,” Geithner said. “Decisions as to how to conclusively address the region’s problems cannot wait until the crisis gets even more severe.”

Geithner was one of a number of finance leaders demanding forceful action.

Mark Carney, the head of Canada’s central bank, called for “overwhelming” the problem with a big increase in Europe’s rescue fund for heavily indebted countries.

In an interview with CBC radio, Carney suggested that a European financial stability fund should be increased from 440 billion euros to 1 trillion euros. At current exchange rates, that would be the equivalent of expanding a $590 billion fund to $1.35 trillion.

“You need a big pot of money,” he said.

For Christine Lagarde, who took over as head of the IMF in June, the debt crisis was a tough first test. Lagarde has warned that without strong and collective action, the world’s major economies risk slipping back into recession.

To avoid that, finance officials of the Group of 20 major economies pledged on Thursday to “take all necessary actions to preserve the stability of banking systems and financial markets.”

But private economists have questioned whether the plan goes far enough to deal with market concerns that a Greek default is a virtual certainty.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said a second bailout package for Greece may have to be re-evaluated because of Athens’ problems in fulfilling earlier financial promises.

This re-evaluation could include changing the terms of the voluntary contribution from banks and other private investors to Greece’s rescue, two European officials said.

One of the officials said that Germany and other rich eurozone nations, including the Netherlands and Austria, are now pushing for an “orderly default” by Greece. That would entail losses for investors that go beyond the 21 percent cut in the face value of government bonds foreseen under the voluntary contribution. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The comments underline how confidence is eroding among core eurozone countries over whether they can actually save Greece. The Greek debt is close to 160 percent of its gross domestic product and its economy looks set for a fourth straight year of recession.

Stock markets in Europe and the U.S. recouped some of their previous day’s hefty losses Friday, but investors remained skeptical about whether the world’s leading economies can keep the global economy from going over the cliff.

Despite the modest gains Friday, the worries are piling up for investors. The Federal Reserve warned this week that the American economy is in significant difficulty, while there were several downbeat European and Asian economic indicators.

Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University’s Martin Smith School of Business said the great concern is that if Greece doesn’t make further painful cuts in government spending and ends up defaulting on its debt, the shock waves will rock big banks in Europe.

He said this would cause fearful investors to sell bonds of other heavily indebted countries such as Italy and Spain, countries with much bigger economies.

“The fear in markets is that the problem will spread to bigger economies such as Spain and Italy. Europe would not have the resources to handle a crisis of that magnitude,” Sohn said.

The finance officials at the Washington meeting said they believed that the 17 nations that use the common euro currency were getting the message they needed to move more quickly to reform their surveillance procedures and increase economic support.

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Associated Press writers Martin Crutsinger and Luis Alonso Lugo in Washington and Sarah DiLorenzo in Paris contributed to this report.

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The United Auto Workers union won $5,000 signing bonuses, the possibility of sweeter profit-sharing checks and guarantees of more union jobs as part of a new four-year contract with General Motors Co., two people briefed on the talks said Saturday.

The deal, reached late Friday, also includes a $2- to $3-per-hour-pay raise for entry-level workers over the life of the contract and the promise of more jobs, the people said.

Both persons asked to remain anonymous because the details of the contract haven’t been reviewed by all local union leaders.

In addition, workers could get profit-sharing checks that are larger than the roughly $4,000 they received based on the company’s earnings last year. But the formula was changed so it is based only on GM’s North American financial results, said the people.

The GM deal will serve as a template for contracts that still must be negotiated with Chrysler Group LLC and Ford Motor Co. It would set the pay and benefits for 112,500 U.S. auto workers. It also will set the bar for pay and benefits at nonunion auto companies and other industries across the country.

The contract is the first since GM and Chrysler received government bailouts to make it through bankruptcy protection in 2009.

The UAW and GM would not give details of the contract. Union President Bob King said Friday that he won’t talk about them until local union leaders are briefed on the pact Tuesday in Detroit.

Workers have to approve the contract before it can take effect. A vote is expected within 10 days.

The union said in a statement Friday that the pact includes some of its major goals, including improvements in profit-sharing, new jobs and better health care benefits.

The deal also will include creative ways to cut GM’s hourly labor costs, which at $56 are still higher than those at nonunion U.S. plants owned by foreign competitors.

GM was the first of the Detroit Three to reach agreement with the UAW. Chrysler is likely to be next, followed by Ford, where little progress has been made in negotiations so far.

The UAW announced the GM agreement just after 11 p.m. EDT Friday, after a little more than seven weeks of closed-door bargaining.

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A brand new Oakville house that was listed for $1 has been pulled off the market after six bids came in over the weekend, two of them in the $700,000 range.

That was about $200,000 less than the sellers had been hoping for after first listing their three-bedroom stucco home for $1.088 million in August and then urging their agent to drop the price last week.

The unusual $1 price tag stimulated a lot of interest, along with some accusations of false advertising. About 170 people came from miles away to tour the house Saturday and Sunday, but the bidding war never got as heated as hoped.

Greece’s cash-strapped government said Sunday that it would impose a new property tax on top of existing austerity measures in order to combat a revenue shortfall.

The government also decided, in a symbolic move aimed at a public angry at politicians, to dock a month’s pay from all elected central and local government officials.

Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said the tax will be levied over the next two years and will cost citizens an average of euro4 ($5.53) per square meter (10.76 sq. feet).

Debt-crippled Greece urgently needs to keep a program of cutbacks on track to secure the continued flow of international rescue loans _ worth euro219 billion ($302.6 billion) _ protecting it from catastrophic bankruptcy.

Over the past 20 months, the Socialist government has cut pensions and salaries while raising taxes and retirement ages. But its efforts to cut back while reviving a fast-contracting economy amid record unemployment have faltered, sparking new market distress.

Speaking after a three-hour cabinet meeting in Greece’s second-largest city of Thessaloniki, Venizelos said the new property levy _ in addition to public sector reforms announced last week _ will make up for lagging revenues this year by providing more than euro2 billion ($2.76 billion), about 1 percent of annual gross domestic product.

Venizelos added that top Greek officials from the head of state to senior ministry executives will lose one month’s pay.

“The levy and the reforms are enough for us to pull through, but that also depends on the response of Greek society,” he said. “It will be sufficient for us to achieve our targets.”

Venizelos added that, if the measures work, Greece can expect a 2012 budget deficit of euro17.1 billion, about 8 percent of GDP, higher than the previously predicted 7.6 percent.

He warned, however, that the economy was expected to shrink at an even faster pace than expected, contracting 5.3 percent in 2011.

On Saturday, Prime Minister George Papandreou, in a keynote speech on the economy in Thessaloniki, pledged to meet fiscal targets despite the economic slowdown.

As the prime minister spoke, riots raged on the streets outside during an anti-austerity protest by some 25,000 people. Police arrested nine suspected rioters, while nine officers and 10 demonstrators were injured.

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Dominique Strauss-Kahn returned home to a mixed welcome in France on Sunday, for the first time since attempted rape accusations by a New York hotel maid unleashed an international scandal that dashed his chances for the French presidency.

New York prosecutors later dropped their case against Strauss-Kahn, former head of the International Monetary Fund, because of questions about the maid’s credibility.

But the affair cost Strauss-Kahn his job at the helm of the IMF and exposed his personal life to worldwide scrutiny that has stained his image and left the French divided over what he should do next. His high-profile return home Sunday reflects how large he looms here.

Smiling and waving silently, he stepped off an Air France flight Sunday at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport a different man from the one who, just four months ago, had been the pollsters’ favorite to beat President Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s presidential elections.

Few expect Strauss-Kahn to return to French politics soon _ his Socialist Party is already in the throes of their presidential primary _ but his supporters have been eagerly awaiting his return after a monthslong legal drama in the U.S. that they saw as unfairly hostile to him.

Jack Lang, a former Socialist government minister and a neighbor of Strauss-Kahn, told The Associated Press that his friend would play a “very important role, not necessarily in the campaign, but in the life of France, the life of Europe.”

Lang said that the French people will eventually forget the scandal. “What scandal? In my eyes, he is innocent.”

As head of the IMF, Strauss-Kahn was widely praised for his management of the institution and its role in the European debt crisis _ an expertise some in France may covet as the problems of deficit and debt deepen.

Residents of Sarcelles, a working class Paris suburb where Strauss-Kahn is mayor, were largely enthusiastic and empathetic about his return.

“I’m happy for him. It’s the end of an ordeal. Now … we should leave him alone a little bit,” resident Laurent Giaoui told The Associated Press.

But a prominent member of Sarkozy’s conservative UMP party, Xavier Bertrand, shrugged off Strauss-Kahn’s appearance in Paris. “Like many French people, I have lots of others worries in my head,” he said on Europe-1 radio. “I have a hard time imagining” Strauss-Kahn back in politics, he said.

Strauss-Kahn flew in to Paris from New York’s JFK Airport early Sunday and gave a brief wave upon leaving the arrivals hall. Pushing a luggage cart, he did not speak to the large crowd.

His wife, respected former TV personality Anne Sinclair, was at his side, beaming widely. Riot police protected him and the area. The two then drove to one of their homes, on Paris’ tony Place des Vosges. The crush of reporters was so thick that Strauss-Kahn had trouble reaching and opening his front door.

The last time he tried to take an Air France flight out of JFK, Strauss-Kahn was pulled out of first class minutes before takeoff by police. They were investigating the maid’s claim that hours earlier, Strauss-Kahn had forced her to perform oral sex and tried to rape her payday loan lenders.

He quit his job, spent almost a week in jail, then six weeks of house arrest and nearly two more months barred from leaving the country before Manhattan prosecutors dropped the case last month, saying they no longer trusted the maid, Guinean immigrant Nafissatou Diallo.

Diallo is continuing to press her claims in a lawsuit. Strauss-Kahn denies the allegations.

Strauss-Kahn faces another investigation in France based on accusations by French novelist Tristane Banon, who says he tried to rape her during an interview in 2003. He calls the claim “imaginary.”

Banon’s mother, Anne Mansouret, told the AP that Strauss-Kahn’s return “is a good thing for my daughter’s complaint because he will have to answer to police.”

Banon says she didn’t file a complaint after the incident because her mother, a regional Socialist official, urged her not to.

Mansouret, who now says she regrets that decision, called it “profoundly indecent” that Strauss-Kahn’s homecoming Sunday was like that of a “star.”

The AP does not name people who report being sexually assaulted unless they agree to be identified or come forward publicly, as Diallo and Banon have done.

Strauss-Kahn, known in France by his initials DSK, is also dubbed a “great seducer” by French commentators for his reputation for sexual adventures.

That reputation _ and France’s overall attitude toward keeping politicians’ private lives private _ came under scrutiny after Strauss-Kahn’s arrest. Many called for more openness about questionable private behavior that might reflect on a politician’s public life.

The Socialist Party is now in a fierce campaign for primaries next month to choose its candidate for April and May presidential elections. The front-runners, while relieved that the New York case was dropped, do not appear keen for Strauss-Kahn to make a comeback.

Strauss-Kahn, an eloquent economist and former finance minister, still has many fans in France, and there remains a small chance he could play a role in the presidential campaign. Strauss-Kahn himself has remained silent about his political plans.

In welcoming Strauss-Kahn back Sunday, many French people expressed concern for his wife _ who was more famous in France than her husband before they married 20 years ago _ and what she’s been through in recent months.

One supporter belted out an ode to Strauss-Kahn in a performance at the Paris airport Sunday morning, accompanied by a Verdi opera played on a portable stereo, before police officers asked him to stop.

“Dominique! Dominique!,” shouted Gregoire Vandevelde, who said he was a former student of Strauss-Kahn’s at a prestigious economic institute. “He is extremely brilliant, full of humor and very competent, warm with his students,” Vandevelde said.

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BHP Billiton Ltd. announced Friday that it completed its takeover of U.S.-based Petrohawk Energy Corp.

BHP Billiton said the $12.1 billion acquisition follows the previously announced completion of the tender offer.

BHP Billiton petroleum chief executive Michael Yeager said the Petrohawk takeover adds high-quality growth to the company.

“With the completion of this transaction, BHP Billiton Petroleum is on track to deliver compound annual growth in production volumes of 10 percent for the remainder of the decade,” he said.

“We are excited that Petrohawk’s sizable U.S. work force is joining our talented group of professionals and we are ready to grow this business over the long-term,” he added payday loan online.

BHP Billiton announced in July it would buy Petrohawk for $12.1 billion in cash, giving it greater access to U.S. shale gas assets.

The acquisition gives BHP Billiton assets covering about 1 million acres in Texas and Louisiana, with an estimated 2011 production of 158,000 barrels of oil equivalent each day.

“Petrohawk has requested the New York Stock Exchange to take the necessary steps with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to delist Petrohawk’s common stock from the NYSE,” BHP Billiton’s statement said.

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Tensions between Britain’s government and police leaders flared Saturday over Prime Minister David Cameron’s recruitment of a veteran American police commander to advise him on how to combat gangs and prevent a repeat of the past week’s riots.

The criticism, led by Association of Chief Police Officers leader Sir Hugh Orde, underscored deep tensions between police and Cameron’s coalition government over who was most to blame for the failure to stop the four-day rioting that raged in parts of London and other English cities until Wednesday.

Cameron criticized police tactics as too timid and announced he would seek policy guidance from William Bratton, former commander of police forces in Boston, New York and Los Angeles. British police have branded the move misguided and an insult to their professionalism.

“I am not sure I want to learn about gangs from an area of America that has 400 of them,” Orde said of Los Angeles, which the 63-year-old Bratton oversaw until 2009.

“It seems to me, if you’ve got 400 gangs, then you’re not being very effective. If you look at the style of policing in the states, and their levels of violence, they are fundamentally different from here,” said Orde, a former commander of Northern Ireland’s police and deputy commander of London’s Metropolitan Police. Orde made his comments to the Independent on Sunday newspaper.

The riots row overshadowed a day of peace on England’s streets and continued progress in processing more than 2,100 riot suspects arrested so far, mostly in London, in unprecedented round-the-clock court sessions.

In England’s second-largest city of Birmingham, prosecutors charged two males with the murder of three men in a hit-and-run attack Wednesday, the deadliest event during the past week’s urban mayhem.

Both males _ identified as Joshua Donald, 26, and a 17-year-old whose name was withheld because of his juvenile status _ were being arraigned Sunday at Birmingham Magistrates Court on three counts each of murder.

The breakthrough by a team of 70 detectives came less than four days after Haroon Jahan, 20, and brothers Shazad Ali, 30, and Abdul Musavir, 31, were mortally wounded when a car struck them at high speed. The trio had been part of a larger group standing guard in front of a row of Pakistani-owned shops.

The killings threatened to ignite clashes between the area’s South Asian and black gangs, but the father of Haroon Jahan made a series of impressively composed public statements in the hours after his son’s death pleading for forgiveness, racial harmony and no retaliation.

Hours before Saturday’s murder charges were announced, the father, Tariq Jahan, told journalists at a Birmingham news conference he had received thousands of letters from well-wishers worldwide.

“I would like to thank the community, especially the young people, for listening to what I have to say and staying calm,” said Jahan, 46, a delivery driver for an electronics chain.

Police in London were continuing to interrogate several suspects linked to the riots’ two other killings: of a 26-year-old man shot to death in a car after a high-speed chase involving a rival group of men, and a 68-year-old loner who was beaten to death after arguing with rioters and trying to extinguish a fire they had set bad credit payday advance.

England’s forces of law and order have been on the defensive over their slow initial response to riots that rapidly spread Aug. 6 from the north London district of Tottenham to several London flashpoints and, eventually, to Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham and other cities with high gang activity.

But police leaders mounted a series of critical interviews Saturday underscoring their view that Cameron was jumping the gun by seeking foreign advice at a time when his debt-hit government was pressing ahead with plans to cut police budgets by 20 percent.

Leaders of the police unions in London and the northwest city of Manchester _ which dealt relatively harshly with rioters and quelled trouble there in one night _ stressed that Cameron needed to listen to their expertise first, rather than seek to apply lessons from America’s better-armed, more aggressive approach to policing.

“America polices by force. We don’t want to do that in this country,” said Paul Deller of the Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents more than 30,000 officers in the British capital.

Deller, a 25-year Met officer, accused the government of not being serious about following Bratton’s recipe for reducing crime.

“When Mr. Bratton was in New York and Los Angeles, the first thing he did was to increase the number of police on the street, whereas we’ve got a government that wants to do exactly the opposite,” he said, warning that planned budget cuts would mean 2,000 officers lose their jobs in London and thousands more nationwide.

Ian Hanson, chairman of the federation’s Manchester branch, said local officers knew better how to police their own communities than “someone who lives 5,000 miles away.”

Results of an opinion poll published Sunday suggested stronger public support for the police than for Cameron’s approach to the crisis.

The poll, commissioned jointly by British newspapers Sunday Mirror and the Independent on Sunday, found that 61 percent thought Cameron and his Cabinet colleagues were too slow to end their foreign summer holidays following last weekend’s outbreak of violence. Cameron returned to London from his break in Italy’s Tuscany region Tuesday, after almost all of the London rioting had passed.

And strong majorities backed greater support and resources for the police, calling for planned budget cuts to be put on hold. About 65 percent said British troops should be used to reinforce police in event of future riots, while even heavier majorities said police should be permitted to use water cannon and plastic bullets against rioters and impose curfews on unruly communities. All of those measures have been used to control street violence in the British territory of Northern Ireland but never in Britain itself.

The survey of 2,008 people, conducted Tuesday and Wednesday, had an error margin of 3 percentage points.

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Greece has banned short selling on the stock market for two months from Tuesday, after shares on the Athens Stock Exchange plunged to their lowest level in more than 14 years.

The bourse’s general index sank below the 1,000-point mark Monday, closing down 6 percent at 998.24 _ the lowest level since January, 1997 _ as financial markets were buffeted by worries over the U.S. economy following a downgrade of the country’s debt.

The slide was markedly more than the declines recorded in other markets in Europe.

Greece became the first EU country to seek an international bailout last year, when it saw its borrowing costs spiral out of control as investors doubted it could repay its debts. International creditors agreed last month to extend it a second bailout.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) _ Shares on the Athens Stock Exchange plunged Monday to their lowest level in more than 14 years, with the bourse’s general index sinking below the 1,000-point mark as financial markets remained spooked by a downgrade of U.S. debt.

The Greek index dropped 6 percent to 998.24 points _ the lowest level since January, 1997. That’s markedly more than the declines recorded in other markets in Europe.

Debt-ridden Greece became the first European Union country to seek an international bailout last year, when it saw its borrowing costs spiral out of control as investors doubted the country could repay its massive debts.

The financial crisis has also affected other eurozone countries, with Portugal and Ireland also receiving bailouts.

On Monday, Europe’s central bank is widely thought to have begun buying the depressed-bonds of Italy and Spain to calm investor fears that the two countries won’t be able to pay their debts.

Though that bond-buying effort appears to have worked in the short-term by reducing the two countries borrowing costs, stock markets around the world have been in retreat as investors respond to Standard & Poor’s momentous downgrade of the U.S.’s rating.

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Premier Silvio Berlusconi faces a tough battle and likely opposition from political rivals and some unions if he is to enforce measures aimed at avoiding Italy’s financial collapse and boosting the country’s stagnant economy.

While the new moves announced Friday by the government were welcomed by some analysts, others criticized the measures to spur growth as too vague and some in the opposition demanded a change of government _ an option Berlusconi dismisses.

Berlusconi’s government devised a euro70 billion ($99 billion) austerity package last month. But on Friday, after intense pressure from markets and fellow European leaders worried that Italy might become the next victim of Europe’s debt crisis, Berlusconi agreed to speed up the process.

“In a month, the world has changed,” Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti said in announcing the measures alongside Berlusconi on Friday evening.

Crucially, the government agreed to bring forward its goal of balancing the budget in 2013 instead of 2014 as originally planned. It also has promised to make the balanced budget a constitutional requirement.

The measures are seen as paving the way for a possible move by the European Central Bank to buy Italian bonds in an effort to bring down the country’s borrowing costs. The bank has not confirmed this, but a close Berlusconi ally and Italian Cabinet minister, Umberto Bossi, said the bank “has assured us that starting Monday it will buy our bonds,” according to the ANSA news agency and other news reports.

The government hopes to generate between euro17 billion and euro20 billion (between $24 billion and $28 billion ) through cuts to its pensions system, which was brought forward to the 2012-2013 period. It also will enforce cuts to tax breaks.

“Italy is complying with all the main requests of fiscal hawks,” said Alan Ruskin, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, foreseeing a positive impact for Italy’s bonds. But, he added, “the sheer scale of Italian debt relative to possible future official support will still leave it vulnerable to (monetary union) contagion from elsewhere.”

Italy’s debt is among the highest in the eurozone at nearly 120 percent of GDP, but poor growth is viewed by many as he overriding issue. Italy is expected to grow only by 1 percent this year, according to some estimates.

The government’s move, announced after the markets had closed Friday, capped a week that saw the Milan Stock Exchange consistently fall. Italy’s borrowing costs rose above Spain’s for the first time in more than a year, heightening concerns over the health of the eurozone’s third-largest economy.

Berlusconi said Friday he is open to new ideas, including from his bitter rivals in the center-left opposition. But it remains unclear how much support Berlusconi would get from his political adversaries in a country that, despite calls for national unity, remains highly polarized.

After Friday’s announcement, some in the opposition signaled the possibility of supporting the government or working with it, saying the new measures marked a departure and a step in the right direction. But many insist Berlusconi first must go. Critics say Berlusconi’s weakened leadership, amid sex scandals and legal woes, adds to the market concerns because it makes it harder for him to pass unpopular measures and focus on reforms.

Berlusconi’s five-year term ends in 2013, and on Saturday the prime minister dismissed speculation he might step down next year and push for early elections.

“This was never an option,” he told reporters outside his Rome residence, according to the ANSA news agency.

Tremonti is hoping to liberalize the labor market by reforming the workers’ chart and making it easier to hire and fire workers. He wants more direct negotiations between companies and employees’ unions, rather than the blanket regulations of the workers’ chart. He also wants to liberalize services and cut red-tape to set up business _ broadening the constitutional provision sanctioning that private enterprise in Italy is free.

Tremonti is set to present some of these proposals next week to parliamentary commissions hastily reconvened despite the summer recess.

However, any constitutional change requires a lengthy and complex parliamentary procedure and a qualified majority. Berlusconi has a majority in parliament but would need support from some opposition forces to obtain a qualified majority.

The labor market changes promise to be very divisive because of opposition from at least some unions. Previous attempts to liberalize the market was met with huge demonstrations.

“In the case of the labor-market reform, it is not difficult to foresee a complicated journey and one that will potentially be divisive for unions,” said Saturday’s financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore.

The leader of the largest Italian labor confederation, Susanna Camusso, wasted no time in criticizing of the new measures. “To move forward the measure means to destroy the country,” she said in a newspaper interview.

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