(Reuters) – Darden Restaurants Inc (DRI.N) posted a 6 percent drop in quarterly earnings, partly hurt by the hurricane Irene, but reaffirmed its full-year earnings outlook.

The company said Irene hurt sales at established Red Lobster, Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse restaurants and estimated the storm reduced quarterly earnings by about 2 cents per share.

Orlando, Florida-based Darden earned $106.8 million for the first quarter, or 78 cents from continuing operations.

Sales were 1.94 billion, up about 7.5 percent.

Darden also said it sees full-year earnings per share growth from continuing operations toward the lower end of its previously announced range of 12 to 15 percent.

Shares of the company closed at $46.98 Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting by Nivedita Bhattacharjee in Bangalore; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh)

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stock index futures pointed to a slightly higher open on Wednesday as investors remained cautiously optimistic about progress on plans to lessen the euro zone’s debt woes.

International auditors headed to Greece to scrutinize new austerity measures they must endorse for Athens to get the next tranche of aid.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggested that parts of a planned new 109-billion-euro ($148.6 billion) rescue for the debt-laden country could be reopened, depending on the outcome of the audit.

Recent efforts to solidify a euro zone rescue fund and alleviate the region’s sovereign debt crisis lifted stocks on Tuesday for a third consecutive session and came after four straight days of losses for the benchmark S&P 500.

“At least they are doing something and for the moment it has taken away the fear of a collapse for now,” said Frank Lesh, a futures analyst and broker at FuturePath Trading LLC in Chicago.

“It is certainly interesting that we had that nice rally yesterday and gave it all back late afternoon but it just shows how nervous the markets are and it is tough to commit. We will probably continue like this until there is a little more clarity and who knows when that comes.”

Market volatility could remain as traders react to European headlines.

Analysts also said equities would be supported by quarter-end “window dressing,” when portfolio managers drop underperforming stocks and buy outperformers.

S&P 500 futures rose 3.7 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration of the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures gained 35 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures added 4.5 points.

In the latest economic data, new orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods slipped in August on weak demand for motor vehicles, but a rebound in a gauge of business spending suggested the economy would avoid another recession.

In the latest quarterly earnings reports, spicemaker McCormick & Co Inc posted a profit that topped estimates, while discount chain Family Dollar Stores Inc recorded higher quarterly income.

Darden Restaurants Inc, parent of the Red Lobster and Olive Garden chains, posted a 6 percent drop in earnings.

Family Dollar shares slid 8 percent to $53.75 and Darden ticked up 2 cents to $47 in premarket trade.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

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ATHENS (Reuters) – Greece’s lenders are sending a team to Athens to inspect a government austerity plan they want implemented in exchange for aid, while Germany suggested a new bailout may have to be renegotiated.

Facing a wave of strikes and protests, Greece’s Socialist government is accelerating its debt strategy to meet the terms of an International Monetary Fund and European Union rescue deal so it can receive a new loan next month and avoid bankruptcy.

The “troika” team of inspectors, which had threatened to cut off aid if Athens did not move faster, will begin talks on Thursday on a plan demanded by lenders to deepen budget cuts and raise taxes, which has set off protests not seen since June when riot police fought running battles with activists.

“I can confirm the Eurogroup (of euro zone ministers) will hold an additional meeting as soon as possible, still in October, to discuss the situation of Greece and consider the disbursement of the next tranche,” a European Commission spokesman said in Brussels, announcing the troika’s return.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggested that parts of a planned new 109-billion-euro ($148.6 billion) rescue for the debt-laden country could be reopened, depending on the outcome of the troika’s audit.

“We have to wait and see what the troika … finds and what it will tell us (whether) we will have to renegotiate or not,” she told Greek state television NET, without elaborating.

Several hundred activists affiliated with the Greek Communists converged on the finance ministry on Wednesday waving a banner saying “We won’t pay!.” They planned to burn bills for a new one-off income tax introduced this summer, while Athens and other parts of the country were hit by transport strikes.

If deemed adequate by the inspectors, the new austerity drive will secure an 8-billion-euro loan Greece needs to pay bills and salaries in October and bring it closer to starting a second bailout agreed in July.

As a condition of the visit and to resolve the row with the lenders, the Greek government had promised to send a written assurance outlining its new plan to meet its bailout targets. Its contents have not been made public.

Germany has repeatedly said negotiations about the details of the second rescue deal can begin only when the troika says Greece has qualified to receive the tranche expected in October, the sixth under a first bailout agreed in 2010.

At the same time, leaders from around the world have urged euro zone capitals to end a tortuous debate and create a safety net big enough to prevent Greece’s problems from spreading to other euro members and triggering a fresh global downturn.

DEBT SWAP DEBATE DEEPENS

The second bailout aims to ease Greece’s debt burden by imposing a 21 percent loss on private Greek bondholders.

After intensifying debate among economists and policymakers that only a 50 percent loss would make the country’s debt viable, more investors have signed up to the bond exchange plan, Greek financial daily Naftemporiki reported.

Citing an unidentified finance ministry official, it said Greece’s weeks-long struggle to lure private bondholders into the rescue plan had ended with it reaching the 90 percent participation target.

The finance ministry declined to comment on the report.

There is no agreement yet among euro zone governments on whether a renegotiation is needed, including more pain for Greece’s bank creditors, or on a U.S.-sponsored plan to leverage the bloc’s rescue fund to give it more firepower.

Germany’s Bundestag (lower house) will vote on Thursday on widening the scope of the European Financial Stability Facility bailout fund, as agreed by the EU leaders on July 21.

Merkel faces a revolt within her conservative camp and may have to rely on support from the opposition Social Democrats and Greens to get the measure approved, damaging her authority.

STRIKES GRIP GREECE

Late on Tuesday, police dispersed about 1,000 anti-austerity protesters with tear gas in Athens’ Syntagma Square, the epicenter of anti-austerity protests.

Taxi drivers, bus and tram operators staged strikes on Wednesday, causing long traffic jams leading into the ancient city center and forcing luggage-hauling tourists scrambling to find rides to the airport.

Other trades ranging from craftsmen, printers and tax officials also staged stoppages and activists planned marches on

parliament and the port of Piraeus later in the day.

“I’ve been trying to find a job for a year now and it’s impossible,” said Maria Kappa, a graduate of the School of Philosophy in Athens. “I don’t see the rich people hurt by this austerity, it’s always the poor who have to pay.”

Lawmakers opened the way to the troika visit on Tuesday by passing a property tax bill. That piles the pressure on Greeks suffering from several waves of belt-tightening and deepens an economic downturn heading into its fourth year.

Prime Minister George Papandreou’s 154 Socialist deputies forced the measure through in the 300-seat parliament.

In the accelerated strategy, the government will cut the 730,000 public workforce by a fifth, reduce the public wage bill by 20 percent, as well as lower overall pensions by 4 percent in addition to a 10 percent cut already agreed in previous plans.

It will also now extend the new real estate tax until 2014, two years longer than originally planned, after the troika judged Greece’s estimate that it would raise 2 billion euros a year to be too high.

(Writing by Michael Winfrey; Editing by Peter Millership/Mike Peacock)

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – A federal judge narrowed a $1 billion lawsuit against owners of the New York Mets baseball team by the trustee seeking money for Bernard Madoff’s victims, and cast skepticism on how much might ultimately be recovered.

Tuesday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan could help the trustee, Irving Picard, force Mets owners to turn over their alleged $300 million of “fictitious profits” from investing with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, where they were once customers.

But he said Picard could pursue $700 million of principal from the owners, including Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, only by proving they “willfully blinded themselves” to “red flags” of Madoff’s epic Ponzi scheme, reflecting a lack of good faith.

Team owners had sought to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming they did not suspect Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme, and never bought insurance to protect themselves against fraud.

The lawsuit has threatened the owners’ hold on the Mets, which are losing tens of millions of dollars a year, prompting them to try selling part of the Major League Baseball team.

Talks to secure a $200 million minority investment from Greenlight Capital hedge fund manager David Einhorn broke down three weeks ago.

A spokeswoman for Picard said the trustee had no comment pending a “thorough evaluation” of the opinion. Lawyers for the Mets owners were not available for comment.

Mario Cuomo, the former New York governor mediating the dispute, also had no immediate comment.

Rakoff dismissed nine of 11 counts in what he facetiously called Picard’s “short and plain” 373-page complaint against Wilpon, Katz and others at their firm Sterling Equities.

One surviving claim alleges actual fraud, and the other would subordinate the defendants’ claims against the Madoff firm’s bankruptcy estate to other creditor claims. Among the dismissed claims were some alleging “constructive fraud.”

Rakoff ordered both sides to appear at a hearing Wednesday to discuss what is next in the case. He indicated last month that a trial could begin in March.

HARD TO INVESTIGATE

But in his ruling, Rakoff said the trustee could face an uphill fight to show that Wilpon and Katz failed to act in good faith, and intentionally turned a blind eye to Madoff’s fraud.

“If, simply confronted with suspicious circumstances, (an investor) fails to launch an investigation of his broker’s internal practices — and how could he do so anyway? — his lack of due diligence cannot be equated with a lack of good faith,” the judge wrote.

Summarizing Picard’s amended complaint filed on March 18, Rakoff said the trustee sought to hold Mets owners responsible for their alleged pursuit of “substantial short-term profits,” even as they tried to curb risk by considering fraud insurance and creating their own hedge fund to limit exposure.

“Although the defendants vehemently deny these accusations,” Rakoff wrote, “the amended complaint, while less than overwhelming in this regard, pleads sufficient allegations to survive a motion to dismiss so far as this claim of willful blindness is concerned.”

Picard has filed more than 1,050 lawsuits on behalf of former Madoff customers seeking in excess of $94 billion.

Rakoff oversees the largest of these lawsuits, a $58.8 billion case against defendants including Bank Medici AG founder Sonja Kohn and Italy’s UniCredit SpA.

Another judge is reviewing Picard’s $19.9 billion case against JPMorgan Chase & Co, once Madoff’s main bank.

Madoff, 73, is serving a 150-year prison term. He pleaded guilty in March 2009 to running his Ponzi scheme.

The case is Picard v. Katz et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-03605.

(Reporting by Grant McCool and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Robert MacMillan, Bernard Orr)

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LONDON (Reuters) – Former BP (BP.L) boss Tony Hayward is considering whether to step down from the board of Russian oil joint venture TNK-BP but has yet to inform the British oil company of any decision, a spokesman for the company said.

The announcement followed Hayward’s return to the oil business last week, when his investment vehicle Vallares (VLRS.L) announced an agreement to acquire Turkish explorer Genel Energy.

The enlarged group will likely be big enough to enter the FTSE 100 index of blue-chip London-listed companies.

A spokesman for BP, responding to a report in the Sunday Telegraph, said it had been aware for some time that Hayward may be considering his future on the board of TNK-BP. The spokesman said were Hayward to leave the board of the joint venture, he would be replaced by another BP-nominated director.

In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Hayward said he did not have any plans to step down from either TNK-BP (TNBP.MM) or the board of Glencore (GLEN.L). However, the paper quoted people close to Hayward as saying he was expected to inform BP of his intention in the coming weeks.

The paper said Hayward did not believe he would have the time to devote to TNK-BP.

Hayward quit as BP chief executive after its blown-out Macondo well caused the worst ever offshore oil spill in the United States. As part of the crisis, Hayward was vilified by much of the American press for a string of comments, including when he said he wanted to get his “life back.”

The news comes as Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, travels to Russia for a visit focused on business and trade. Cameron will travel with more than 20 business executives, including BP chief executive Bob Dudley.

BP has been engaged in a spat with its partners in TNK-BP, who have alleged billions of losses due to BP’s failed plan to establish a parallel joint venture with state-controlled Rosneft.

Last week, black-clad special forces raided BP’s Moscow offices and searched for documents related to the failed Rosneft deal.

(Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Dan Lalor)

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ZURICH (Reuters) – Some banks may have to get help from the state as plunging share prices could make it difficult to raise capital, UBS (UBSN.VX) chief executive Oswald Gruebel told Swiss newspaper Sonntag in an interview published on Sunday.

Gruebel said his comment did not apply to the top two Swiss banks as Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX) and UBS were now less likely, compared with 2008, to be affected by European banks that found themselves in difficulty given that interbank trading was no longer as important.

Gruebel said future returns from investment banking were unlikely to be 20 percent and above but around 10 percent, adding this also applied to the big players on Wall Street.

UBS itself had to be rescued by the state in 2008 after massive losses on toxic assets.

Gruebel criticized the Swiss National Bank’s recent move to set an exchange rate cap on the Swiss franc at 1.20 euros.

“We, as a small country with the franc, can’t dictate an exchange rate against the euro. That is impossible in the long term. Despite this, I hope the effect that has been reached is sustainable,” he said.

Separately, Credit Suisse chairman Urs Rohner, interviewed by NZZ am Sonntag, welcomed the SNB move to cap the franc.

“The franc was massively overvalued, as the actual purchasing power of the euro is estimated at about 1.35 francs to 1.40 francs,” Rohner was quoted as saying.

Credit Suisse analysts expect the euro to rise to 1.25 francs in the next three months and to 1.30 francs in the next 12 months, Rohner said.

(Reporting by Katie Reid; Editing by Dan Lalor)

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VICENZA, Italy (Reuters) – Jewelry company Richline International, part of billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N), will buy its fifth small Italian jewelry brand as it plans to expand further in Italy.

Italy-based Richline International, fully owned by Berkshire’s unit Richline Group, said in a statement it has signed a letter of intent to buy the production, design, intellectual property and distribution rights of Carniani.

It did not disclose financial details of the deal.

Lucio Carniani, who would continue to run his gold and silver jewelry maker, told Reuters his company revenues came in at 4 million euros ($5.63 million) last year.

Earlier this year, U.S. jewelry manufacturer and distributor Richline Group, has bought four privately held Italian jewelry brands: children’s jewelry maker Erz, earrings and bracelets maker Farinex, 7AR and Zeno, fuelling expectations that other deals could be in the pipeline.

Richline is looking for other acquisitions on the Italian jewelry market after the Carniani deal, Dennis Ulrich, chief executive officer of Richline Group, told Reuters.

“We are looking to expand … We always have ongoing conversations (about possible acquisitions) … A bigger acquisition is not excluded,” Ulrich said in an interview at an international jewelry trade fair.

Richline could be interested in small artisanal jewelry makers and in industrial companies as long as they produce high quality creative products, Ulrich said.

Italian jewelry highly fragmented manufacturing sector, made up mostly of small family-owned companies, has been hit hard by the 2008/2009 financial crisis and many companies need cash injections to keep going.

Richline Group, which was formed in 2007 and includes such brands as Andin, Alarama, Aurafin, Auragem and Bel-Oro (www.richlinegroup.com), made $500 million in sales last year, Ulrich said.

With buying Italian companies and setting up Richline International as a hub for further expansion, Richline Group goes beyond its traditional North American markets to boost sales in Italy, France, Germany, Britain, Scandinavia and reach as far as Australia and Hong Kong, he said.

Carniani is expected to double its sales within a year while the whole Richline International is seen boosting its business by 50 percent over the period thanks to organic growth and new acquisitions, Ulrich said.

Richline does not plan acquisitions of jewelry makers in Asia for now but aims to establish commercial relations there, he said.

(Reporting by Svetlana Kovalyova; Editing by Toby Chopra)

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PARIS (Reuters) – The resignation of the top German official at the European Central Bank could hardly have come at a worse time for euro zone policymakers as they grope for a way out of the deepest crisis in the single currency’s 12-year history.

The ECB is the one institution that has kept the euro zone afloat in the sovereign debt crisis and prevented a bond market meltdown. The European Union has no federal government or common fiscal authority and speaks with many dissonant voices.

Juergen Stark’s departure from the ECB’s Executive Board in despair at the policy of buying government bonds to prevent the crisis spreading comes as policymakers in Berlin and beyond are preparing for the growing possibility of a Greek default.

It seems bound to complicate the next round of crisis management because it has injected the poison of inter-state politics as well as ideological division into the independent central bank.

“It’s the ECB that is holding the show together, so anything that weakens the ECB is bad news,” said an EU official involved in financial crisis management.

Stark’s walkout will further sap the ECB’s credibility with Germany’s conservative financial establishment, which saw the bond-buying as an improper means of financing government debt, and among voters in Europe’s largest economy.

That could make greater fiscal integration in the euro zone politically harder to achieve at a time when Chancellor Angela Merkel is coming to realize that a big leap forward in economic governance is needed to preserve the single currency.

It risks importing a north-south divide, between self-styled virtuous creditor countries and peripheral states seen as profligate and feckless, into the central bank.

At worst, Stark’s departure may constrain the ECB’s ability to act decisively in the coming months when the debt crisis enters an even more dangerous phase.

HAMSTRUNG

“This comes at a very, very bad time and it’s certainly serious,” said Jean Pisani-Ferry, director of the Bruegel economic think-tank in Brussels.

“If the ECB is shackled in its ability to buy Italian and Spanish bonds and at the same time we have to do a real restructuring of Greece’s debts, with a proper haircut, we risk a contagion shock spreading to other countries. If the ECB is hamstrung by a lack of consensus, that is the risk.”

A growing number of policymakers, as well as market economists, are convinced it is only a matter of time before Greece, which keeps falling behind on its fiscal targets, will have to default.

A source at this weekend’s G7 finance chiefs’ meeting in Marseille said the troika of EU, ECB and IMF inspectors, who suspended talks with Athens last week, would probably find a formula in its progress report to allow the next 8 billion euro ($11 million) tranche of bailout funds to be paid in October.

That would keep Greece going for a couple more months until European parliaments approve new powers for the EFSF rescue fund to give preventive credit lines to euro zone member states, buy bonds in the secondary market and lend money to recapitalize banks.

The source said the German Finance Ministry was increasingly convinced that Greece will not be able to avoid default for much longer, so ring-fencing the euro zone’s weakest debtor and limiting contagion will be crucial.

Even when the EFSF has its new powers, it will require the unanimous agreement of the 17 euro zone member states to use them, with the German parliament having just gained a bigger oversight role on those decisions. Political hurdles abound.

Markets may bid up euro zone bond yields again in anticipation of the ECB pulling out of bond-buying and handing over to the inexperienced EFSF, traders say.

The ECB has bought a total of 135 billion euros’ worth of Italian, Spanish, Greece, Irish and Portuguese bonds so far.

The rescue fund may find itself short of firepower in a crisis. It will have about 380 billion euros in uncommitted funds. Italy alone has 1.9 billion euros of outstanding government bonds, of which 45 percent are held by foreigners.

HARDER LINE

The replacement of Stark on the ECB board by the more pragmatic German junior finance minister Joerg Asmussen, the seasoned crisis manager proposed by Berlin on Saturday, may reduce ideological tensions at the central bank.

But it could also force incoming ECB President Mario Draghi, who succeeds Jean-Claude Trichet on November 1, to take a harder line on ending bond purchases and sticking to the bank’s core mandate of fighting inflation.

Draghi has already warned governments, including his native Italy, that continued bond-buying cannot be taken for granted.

“The next step will be increased pressure on the ECB to keep its hands clean. Stark is from the German school that sees this kind of intervention as bad in principle,” said Josef Janning, director of research at the European Policy Center in Brussels.

“His likely successor will be less orthodox and more of a political crisis manager. But Stark may use his new freedom to speak out. That could make things more complicated for Merkel and for Draghi,” the German political scientist said.

Stark’s resignation could also affect international confidence in the ECB and the euro zone at a crucial moment.

“Politics has never been completely absent from the ECB but this has now been reinforced. This awakens the idea that the ECB is still a structure that amalgamates national institutions and views, not primarily individuals belonging to its board,” Pisani-Ferry said.

“You have to think about how this looks from New York. It looks as if these people can’t even sit around the same table and work things out.”

($1 = 0.729 Euros)

(Additional reporting by Annika Breidthardt in Marseille and Luke Baker in Brussels; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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LONDON (Reuters) – The euro and growth-linked currencies may fall on Monday, hit by a lack of concrete measures from Group of Seven finance chiefs to address either faltering growth, the escalating euro zone debt crisis, or exchange rate volatility.

The dollar, yen and, to a lesser extent, Swiss franc are set to advance with more investors seeking safe-haven currencies on the back of rising financial market stress.

That will raise the risk of more solo intervention from Japanese and Swiss authorities.

The flight to safety should drive core government bonds like German Bunds and British gilts higher, leading to wider spreads over euro zone peripheral debt, while European banking shares may ease on mounting worries about contagion engulfing bigger economies like Italy and Spain.

Finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations pledged to respond in a concerted matter to a global slowdown. However, they offered no specific steps and differed in emphasis on Europe’s debt crisis.

That will likely offer little solace to investors who had expected some sort of coordinated policy response from G7 policymakers at a time when stock markets have been falling and global growth in showing increasing signs of stalling.

“As this falls short of any commitment to undertake co-ordinated action in currency markets, investors are likely to react with disappointment when trading resumes on Monday,” said Mansoor Mohi-uddin, head of foreign exchange strategy at UBS.

He expected Japan to stay on intervention watch.

Japan’s finance minister, Jun Azumi, said he met with little resistance to further intervention at the G7 meeting. Japan last intervened in the currency market on August 4 to topple the yen from a record high against the dollar.

“We expect Japan’s authorities will act again unilaterally if dollar/yen tests its post-war lows of 75.95 yen. As a result we think investors should instead keep favoring the dollar now when they seek safe-haven currencies,” UBS’s Mohi-uddin said.

The dollar index, which measures its performance against a basket of six currencies which includes the euro, yen and sterling, rose to its highest in six months at 77.276 on Friday.

In a bullish signal, it closed above its 55-week moving average at 77.01. Resistance was seen at the base of the weekly Ichimoku cloud around 78.05, while strong resistance was at the 38.2 percent retracement of the index’s fall from a high of 88.71 on June 7, 2010 to a low of 72.696 on May 4, 2011 which comes in at 78.80.

The dollar is set to make strong gains against the euro, which last week fell to its lowest in six months, at around $1.3627. The euro posted its biggest weekly fall since mid-August last year, with many looking for it to test $1.35 in the near term.

EURO ON THE WAY DOWN

The euro also fell sharply against the safe-haven Japanese yen on Friday, dropping to its lowest in nearly a decade. It ended the week at 105.85 yen, and a break below the psychologically key 105.00 level could see it drop toward 100 yen in coming weeks, analysts said.

Howard Wheeldon, a strategist at BCG Capital Partners, said the weekend’s developments provided little confidence to investors in the euro zone, and the coming week will see increased volatility in stock markets.

That could hurt the euro more in coming days.

The euro was sold off last week after European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet shifted the monetary stance from a hawkish bias to a more neutral one.

The shock resignation of ECB board member Juergen Stark, which highlighted sharp divisions within the central bank over purchases of government bonds in the secondary market and concerns that Greece may not secure its latest aid tranche from the IMF/European Union, also added to the euro’s woes.

Investors will also likely be unsettled by a weekend report from Der Speigel magazine that the German finance ministry was looking at scenarios that included Greece abandoning the euro.

Indeed, latest data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed speculators added to their bearish bets against the euro in the week to September 6.

“With $1.40 going last week, I think the euro could fall to $1.35 in the next few days,” said Michael Derks, chief strategist at FXPRO. “The dollar be will the currency that will gain from safe-haven inflows given the risk of intervention in the yen and the line in the sand that has been drawn on the Swiss franc by the Swiss National Bank.”

On the charts, near term support was seen at $1.3426, a low hit on February 14 and from where the euro started its move to a 17-month high at $1.4939 struck on May 4.

(Reporting by Anirban Nag; Editing by Dan Lalor)

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MARSEILLE, France (Reuters) – Italy will next week start an in-depth look into progress of past efforts to improve public finances and growth and try to find new measures to spur the economy, Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti said on Saturday.

Italy, the euro zone’s third largest economy, has moved firmly to the center of the euro zone’s debt crisis in recent weeks as Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s fractious center-right coalition has dithered over measures to stimulate growth and slash debt.

“Our economy needs a check. If some of the things we have done are working we have to communicate them. If there are things to add we will add them,” Tremonti told reporters in the French Mediterranean port city of Marseille where G7 finance ministers held talks.

“I spoke yesterday about this idea with the Bank of Italy’s vice-general director. We must make this inventory together with the economic organizations — OECD, IMF and EU Commission — that have expressed great interest to these developments.”

An Italian emergency could overwhelm existing euro zone bailout mechanisms and under mounting pressure from bond markets Rome has presented an austerity package to that aims to balance the budget by 2013 and trim a 1.9 trillion euro debt pile.

The deficit-cutting measures are expected to be approved by parliament early next week but there are widespread fears they could further slow Italy’s already fragile growth.

Tremonti also said it is widely agreed the world is not over its economic crisis.

“It is now almost five years since the start of the crisis in 2007 and it is going to continue,” he said.

“The crisis has been managed but I do not think it has been overcome and this is everybody’s opinion.”

(Reporting by Giselda Vagnoni; Editing by Toby Chopra)

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