Negotiators from Likud Beytenu and the Yesh Atid-Bayit Yehudi bloc have reached the first step of a new coalition pact, agreeing to drop eight ministers from the current panel of 28, not including the prime minister. The party representatives met Monday afternoon to continue their efforts to hammer out a new agreement by March 16, the deadline by which time Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu must either submit a new coalition agreement for President Shimon Peres's approval, or tell the president he was unable to form a government.