Berlusconi ratings sink to new low after budget

ROME, June 3 (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's popularity has sunk to its lowest level since he took office in 2008, hurt largely by an austerity budget that a majority of Italians consider unfair, a new poll showed.

Berlusconi's approval ratings slid 5.8 percentage points to 42.5 in June from February, making him less popular than Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti and ally Gianfranco Fini, said the poll by Demos & Pi published in the left-leaning La Repubblica daily.

Analysts have warned the effervescent Berlusconi could pay heavily for laughing off the crisis as leftist propaganda before abruptly announcing a 25-billion-euro austerity package to stave off a Greek-style debt crisis. [ID:nLDE64Q17S]

A widening bribery scandal that has already forced his industry minister to resign and controversial plans to restrict wiretapping have also hurt the premier, La Repubblica said.

Most Italians appear to agree with Italy's largest union, which has slammed the budget as penalising the working poor while sparing the rich and called for a national strike.

About 53 percent of Italians deemed the budget severe and unfair because the sacrifices are unequally distributed, while 11.5 percent called the measures "too severe", the poll showed.

Nearly 45 percent of those polled had a negative opinion on the budget, outweighing the 39.1 percent that felt positively.

The budget includes salary freezes for public sector workers and cuts in funding to local governments as well as pay cuts for ministers and parliamentarians. [ID:nLDE64P0LY]

Analysts say divisions among trade unions will allow Berlusconi to push through the budget without the social unrest seen in Greece, but the painful measures will cost him politically. (Reporting by Deepa Babington; Editing by Maria Golovnina)