Italian PM Conte faces key senate test

▶ Teetering coalition government fights off collapse with uncertain majority

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte faced a vote of confidence in parliament on Tuesday, seeking the Senate’s support for his teetering government as it battles a deadly coronavirus pandemic.

The ruling coalition has been on the brink of collapse since former premier Matteo Renzi withdrew his Italia Viva party last week, depriving Conte of his majority in the upper chamber.

Conte, who since 2018 has headed two politically divergent governments, is desperately seeking the support of opposition lawmakers to allow his coalition to stay in power.

He has warned of the danger of leaving Italy rudderless in the middle of a pandemic that has claimed more than 82,000 lives and devastated the economy.

“The future of the country depends on the choices that each one will decide to make in this grave hour,” he told the lower Chamber of Deputies.

He won a confidence vote late Monday in the lower house, where the coalition parties – notably the center- left Democratic Party ( PD) and the populist Five Star Movement ( M5S) – have a majority.

But after Renzi withdrew, Conte has no formal majority in the Senate and the vote later Tuesday could be tight.

Renzi has said he will likely abstain, making it more likely that the government will win, but without a stable majority, the crisis risks being merely delayed.

“In all probability, Conte will obtain the confidence of the Senate,” said Giovanni Orsina, head of the Luiss School of Government in Rome.

He predicted that “the Conte government will more or less survive as it is with a smaller majority, and therefore with a more marked parliamentary weakness.”

Minority governments are nothing new in Italy, which has had 29 prime ministers and 66 governments since 1946.

But the task facing this one is unprecedented, with parts of the country currently under partial lockdown and a 220 billion euro ($ 196 billion) EU recovery package to push through parliament.

Italy was the first European country to face the full force of the pandemic early in 2020 and has been one of the EU’s hardest- hit countries – both in terms of its death toll and the impact on an already struggling economy.

It has been allocated a large share of a 750 billion euro EU rescue fund, but Conte’s 220 billion spending plan was a trigger for the current turmoil.

The task facing this government is unprecedented, with parts of the country currently under partial lockdown and a huge EU recovery package to push through parliament.