ROME– A decision of the Tribunal of Monza has ended the 23-year-long marriage between Silvio Berlusconi and Veronica Lario, judicial officials say.

 The sentence released by the court in Monza, in the vicinity of the former couple’s residence in Macherio, is partial, as financial terms of the divorce are still pending. The dispute over the sum which Mr Berlusconi should pay his ex-wife, ongoing since the couple’s separation in 2004, has not yet been resolved. The astronomic figure of 3mln euros a month which Milanese judges obligated former prime minister to pay his wife in 2012 to ensure her a standard of living equal to that enjoyed during over twenty years of marriage to one of the world’s richest men, was halved in October last year, following Mr Berlusconi’s appeal and demand of divorce. In one of the so-called ‘Presidential hearings’, chaired by President Anna Maria Di Oreste, Monza judges reached a decision to cut Mrs Lario’s allowance, granting her a monthly alimony of 1.4mln euros.

 With yesterday’s decision of the Tribunal ends a relationship whose early days date back to 1980, and which was formalised a decade later, after the couple’s three children, Barbara, Eleonora e Luigi, were born. Mr Berlusconi’s recurrent infidelities led the spouses to decide to live separately in early 2000s, until in May 2009 Mrs Lario filed for separation. The announcement was preceded by a series of accusations made by the then Signora Berlusconi regarding her husband’s involvement in putting forward his protégées, the so-called ‘veline’, as candidates in elections to the European Parliament, and a media scandal around the infamous ‘bunga bunga’ parties held in his villa in Milan, where underage girls were in attendance.

 As of yesterday, former prime minister is again an unmarried man, free to legalise his relationship with his 28-year-old fiancée, Francesca Pascale. While the judges of the court of appeal are busy in an effort to settle the contested points of the divorce agreement, speculations abound over when Mr Berlusconi’s third wedding might take place. Almost 50 years his junior, Miss Pascale speaks openly about her wish to formalise her engagement to former prime minister at the earliest opportunity.