Italian President Giorgio Napolitano to step down

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano will step down in hours, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said on Tuesday, opening up a delicate political process to name a new head of state.

The 89-year-old Napolitano, who reluctantly agreed to a second term in 2013 after a deadlocked election threatened to leave Italy politically adrift, said last month he would resign soon because of age-related ailments.

"I would like us to salute Napolitano, a committed Europeanist who in these hours will leave his post ... having confronted difficulties in Italy with intelligence and wisdom," Renzi said in a speech to the European Parliament to mark the close of the EU semester.

Napolitano had been widely expected to step down after the end of Italy's six-month presidency of the European Union, which ends on Tuesday.

Voting in parliament to name a new president is expected to begin by the end of January. A two-thirds majority of lawmakers in both the lower and upper house of parliament is needed to choose the president in the first three rounds of voting.