Italy's PM says he intends to resign

ROME - Italy's Prime Minister Mario Monti said on Saturday he intended to resign, according to a statement from the president office.

After a two-hour meeting with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, who has the power to dissolve parliament, Monti said he will step down after checking to see if parliament can pass his government's budget law.

Should the budget law be passed "soon," Monti said he would immediately "formalize his irrevocable resignation in the hands of the president," according to the statement.

Monti's emergency cabinet of unelected technocrats has lost the support of former premier Silvio Berlusconi's center-right People of Freedom (PdL) party.

Earlier this week, the government appeared to risk collapsing when the PdL withdrew its support for two confidence votes in parliament.

The PdL lawmakers, the biggest group in parliament, abstained in a Senate vote on an economic-development bill and in another vote in the House on measures to reduce the costs of the political system.

According to local experts, the fraying of the political picture added up to the fragility of a restoration of public finances almost solely through austerity risks to generate "a general standstill" in the recession-hit country.