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Italy's lower house OK's budget revised to avoid EU reprisal

Sunday, 30 December 2018 6:56 AM [ Last Update: Sunday, 30 December 2018 7:01 AM ]

Deputies attend a parliament session for a vote of confidence on Italy's revised 2019 budget, in Rome, Italy, on December 29, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

Italian lawmakers passed Saturday the populist government's revised 2019 budget before a year-end deadline, despite complaints from the opposition that it was dictated by Brussels and had been rammed through without debate.

The coalition of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) and the far-right League Party expressed their approval with a vote of confidence that saw 327 deputies for and 228 against, with one abstention.

Key measures in the big-spending budget were watered down as the government tried to avoid being punished by the European Commission and financial markets.

Senators passed the draft last week with a vote of confidence that avoided discussing around 700 amendments put forward by the government but provoked acrimonious scenes over the lack of substantive debate.

Similar scenes were repeated on Friday in the lower house, where the session was suspended after copies of the budget were thrown around, and in the chamber on Saturday.

If next year's budget had not passed before December 31, the government would have been forced to continue to function on a monthly basis using the 2018 budget.

"There was no deliberate wish by the government to avoid discussion," Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told an end-of-year press conference on Friday as the opposition Democratic Party filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court over the sidelining of parliament.

Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte attends a session for a parliament vote of confidence on Italy's revised 2019 budget, in Rome, Italy, on December 29, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

Conte, a lawyer, is not a member of either of the ruling parties and has worked to achieve compromises between the parties and with Brussels since the government was formed in June.

In a historic first, in October, the European Commission rejected Italy's big-spending budget, which promised a universal basic income and scrapped pension reform.

But Italy last week agreed to reduce the cost of both of its landmark measures, and is now committed to not adding to its colossal two-trillion euro debt load next year.

Italy's public debt is a big problem and now sits at a huge 2.3 trillion euros (2.6 trillion dollars), or 131 percent of Italy's GDP — way above the 60 percent EU ceiling.

(Source: AFP)

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