PALERMO, Sicily — As Prime Minister Mario Monti fights to protect Italy from the contagion driving up its borrowing costs to perilous levels, one region in particular has been in the spotlight: Sicily, which some fear has become “the Greece of Italy” and is at risk of defaulting on its high public debts.

Mr. Monti wrote to Sicily’s regional president last week warning that he had “serious concerns.” The day before, an official in the Sicily branch of Italy’s leading industrialists association called for the island to be put into receivership by the central government to clean up its finances.

When headlines about a potential Sicilian default ricocheted the globe, the government quickly played down concerns and said it would send 400 million euros, about $486 million, to ease Sicily’s liquidity crunch so it could continue to pay salaries and pensions. One government official said that Mr. Monti’s letter had been intended for a domestic audience and that Sicily’s problems could not spread to other Italian regions.

But with Europe’s debt crisis, local politics quickly become international problems. And the flare-up over Sicily highlights the challenges that Mr. Monti is facing in trying to use pressure from European leaders and international markets to push Italy’s politicians to cut costs. Those expenses have ballooned after decades of a patronage system in which the state has been the primary means of employment in Sicily.