Silvio Berluscon's new People of Liberties (PDL) party will gel as components fully merge for next year's European elections, officials said Friday.
The major stakeholder in the party, Berlusconi's own Forza Italia (FI), announced the plan to hold a constituent assembly in good time for the EU parliament vote in early June 2009.
The centre-right FI welcomed rightwing National Alliance (AN) and the tiny southern-based Movimento per L'Autonomia (MpA) into the nascent PDL for last April's general elections, which it won handily with strong support from its ally the Northern League.
FI officials said the full-fledged merger - in which the constituents will formally disband - would be open to former ally the UDC, a centrist Catholic party now in opposition.
Nationwide, the PDL already operates in virtually all respects as a single party.
But FI and AN still hold separate events and are often represented separately at the local and regional level.
