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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Italy’s new government wins 1st of 2 confidence votes

By Nicole Winfield Associated Press

ROME – Premier Paolo Gentiloni easily won a vote of confidence Tuesday night from the Italian Parliament’s lower chamber for his new government, overcoming opposition outrage that his cabinet and agenda essentially mirror those of his humiliated predecessor.

Despite pledges by opposition lawmakers from the anti-European Union Northern League and the populist 5-Star Movement to stay away from the vote in protest of Gentiloni’s “photocopied” Cabinet, the measure passed 368-105 with no abstentions among the lawmakers present.

Opposition politicians say that by retaining so many ministers from ex-Premier Matteo Renzi’s cabinet, Gentiloni ignored the results of a Dec. 4 constitutional referendum in which Italians overwhelmingly rejected Renzi and his reforms.

The Senate is expected to vote on its own confidence motion Wednesday. Approval from both houses is required for the government already sworn in by President Sergio Mattarella to carry on its mandate.

The aim is to have a government in place before Gentiloni heads to Brussels on Thursday for a European Council summit.

The opposition is particularly irked that Renzi’s reforms minister, who had promised to leave politics if the referendum failed, was named an undersecretary in Gentiloni’s office.

“Italians said ‘no,’ but it doesn’t seem to matter!” Giorgia Meloni, of the opposition Italy Brothers party, told Gentiloni during the parliamentary debate. “Italians expressed themselves in an unequivocal way, but they don’t care and they stay attached to their thrones.”

Gentiloni defended Renzi’s term and insisted that his Democratic Party was doing the responsible thing by forming a government that could lead Italy until elections. He said he was taking a “political risk” by doing so, but that the Constitution requires the party with a parliamentary majority to try to form a government.

He acknowledged the difficulties ahead, saying his talks with lawmakers showed the “impossibility of a general convergence.” But he said he hoped that on individual items, opposition forces could find common ground with the majority.

Addressing Italy’s banking crisis, Gentiloni said the government was ready to intervene to “guarantee” banks and Italians’ savings. And he said the government would help lawmakers draft a new electoral law that harmonizes the rules between both houses of Parliament.

Opposition parties have clamored for an early election following Renzi’s drubbing at the polls, but the current law has one set of rules for the Senate and another for the lower Chamber of Deputies.

The European Council summit on Thursday is just one of several international appointments on Italy’s agenda in 2017 that Gentiloni, the former foreign minister, cited to reinforce the need to have a stable government in place.

Italy on Jan. 1 takes up a non-permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and in May hosts the Group of Seven. In March, it plans to host a summit to mark the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, one of the founding treaties of the European Union.

Many of Renzi’s ministers kept their jobs in the Cabinet that was sworn in Monday: Finance Minister Carlo Padoan, Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti as well as the ministers of justice, health, infrastructure and culture. Angelino Alfano shifted from being interior minister to foreign minister – a key job given Italy’s 2017 international commitments.