ROME: The former European commissioner, Mario Monti, has unveiled Italy's new government and told Italy's president, Giorgio Napolitano, he was ready to test its support in parliament.

Monti, a distinguished liberal economist, kept for himself the finance ministry. He handed the industry and infrastructure portfolios to Corrado Passera, the CEO of Italy's biggest retail bank, Intesa Sanpaolo.

The dominant note in the list Monti read out was the weight of academics, who will occupy more than a third of the seats in cabinet. Three of the ministers in his bigger-than-expected cabinet were women, and two were appointed to top jobs: Anna Maria Cancellieri as interior minister and Paola Severino as justice minister.

The new prime minister, Monti, confirmed he would take on the unenviable task of governing the eurozone's most indebted nation after two days of intense consultations during which Italy's borrowing costs soared to unsustainable levels.

The uncertainties surrounding the formation of the new government were maintained to the end by a much longer than expected two-and-a-half hour meeting between the incoming prime minister and the president.

The names on the list of his ministers — most of them unknown to members of the Italian public — showed that Monti had failed in his attempt to involve party representatives in his government. His government was made up exclusively of non-aligned technocrats.

But the economics professor-turned-eurocrat managed to stave off — at least temporarily — demands from the outgoing prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and his party, for the government to have a limited programme and a fixed lifespan. The influence that Berlusconi's Freedom party will exercise over the new government was nevertheless made clear in the runup to Wednesday's announcement.

Monti spent three hours at a meeting that finished after 2.30am local time, with Angelino Alfano, the secretary of Berlusconi's party, trying to reach agreement on the names of the new ministers. Berlusconi was ousted after losing his majority last week in the lower house of parliament, the chamber of deputies. But he and his former coalition allies in the Northern League can still command a majority in the senate.

Before the end of the week, the government is expected to outline its programme and seek confidence votes in both houses of parliament, without which it cannot continue. Napolitano, who oversaw the rapid transition, asked Monti to try to form a government on Sunday night.—Dawn/Guardian News Service