Rome - The co-founder of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's new party restated Monday his dissent with Berlusconi's plans to change Italy's constitution, including more powers for the premier, regardless of the views of the country's opposition.

Gianfranco Fini, speaker of parliament's lower house Chamber of Deputies, was commenting on remarks made by Berlusconi on Sunday at the People of Freedom party's opening congress.

Berlusconi lamented that the prime minister's powers were almost "non-existent" and before some 6,000 delegates attending the congress, vowed to press forward with institutional reforms.

The billionaire-turned-politician, said the People of Freedom, a merger between two conservative parties - his own Forza Italia and Fini's National Alliance - would pursue this "even without" the involvement of the opposition.

But the 57-year-old Fini, who is viewed by some as the 72-year-old Berlusconi's possible successor, said Monday he was waiting for the premier to respond on several key issues that continue to divide them.

He also said "the next few weeks" would indicate whether broad agreement can be reached in parliament over reforms to Italy's constitution.

Fini, who is widely credited with leading the National Alliance away from its neo-fascist roots, has recently distanced himself from remarks by Berlusconi which have been branded as "authoritarian" by the centre-left opposition.

He blasted a Berlusconi proposal that voting in parliament should be restricted to party-whips rather than individual lawmakers who, according to the premier, "just waste time".

And on Friday, during his speech at the People of Freedom congress, Fini also criticized controversial legislation promoted by the Berlusconi government on living wills - documents in which people could use to specify beforehand what type of medical treatment they wish to receive when they are no longer in a position to express this.

Fini suggested that the government had bowed to pressure from the Catholic Church by drafting a bill which effectively prevents people from stating in living wills that, when in a comatose state, they do not want to be kept alive by being artificially fed. (dpa)