Most significantly, the latest incarnation of the austerity package would change Italian labor law to allow businesses to bypass national labor contracts, making it easier to hire and fire workers — a move that economists say is crucial for making the Italian economy more flexible but that labor unions vehemently oppose.

On Tuesday, Mr. Berlusconi’s office said the measures would also raise the VAT, or value-added tax, to 21 percent from 20 percent; add a “solidarity tax” of 3 percent on Italians who earn more than 500,000 euros, or about $700,000, annually; and increase the retirement age for women in the private sector in 2014.

The Northern League, the most powerful party in Mr. Berlusconi’s coalition, had been opposed to raising the retirement age for women, since public day care is scarce in Italy and grandmothers often serve that role.

The disarray in the governing coalition has led a growing number of analysts to question its ability to act effectively. In a front-page editorial on Tuesday in Il Sole 24 Ore, Italy’s leading daily business newspaper, the editor in chief, Roberto Napoletano, wrote that the government should bear the “honor and burden” of representing the country “if it is capable of doing so.”

“Or if it is not,” he added, “it should have the honesty and dignity to face the consequences.”

Those consequences could include putting the euro zone, the nations that use the euro, at risk. On Monday, Mario Draghi, the departing Bank of Italy president and the next president of the European Central Bank, became the latest European leader to pressure Mr. Berlusconi to approve the austerity measures swiftly.

He said that Italy should “not take it for granted” that the European Central Bank would continue buying Italian debt.

Were that to stop happening, Italy’s borrowing costs would be likely to rise, putting intense strain on a country whose economy is expected to grow no more than 1 percent this year, not enough to help pay down a debt that is 120 percent of gross domestic product, second in the euro zone after Greece.