Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is denying reports stating he would resign on Monday or Tuesday. Stocks traded on the Milan bourse soared earlier today when two pro-Berlusconi newspapers ran headlines announcing that the PM was about to leave the political stage. Now, though, new reports suggest Berlusconi will go ahead with plans to push a package of EU-backed economic reforms through parliament. Though he’s expected to survive in the Senate, it’s not clear whether he still musters a majority in the lower chamber, where the opposition could call for a confidence vote. Investors reacted to news that Berlusconi would try to hold on to power by sending bond yields back up to near euro-era record heights, at 6.6 per cent. Behavior on the Milan stock exchange, writes Financial Times Rome correspondent Guy Dinmore, “indicates that Italy has a Berlusconi problem more than a fundamental problem.”