Conte wins Senate confidence after sparring with League

(ANSA) - Rome, September 10 - Premier Giuseppe Conte won a Senate confidence vote by 169 votes to 133 with five abstentions after sparring with the far-right League party on Tuesday.
    Conte said after winning the second and final confidence vote needed by his new government that "parliament has voted confidence in the government. A new start for Italy, a reforming season of relaunch and hope. Constitution and respect for the Institutions our compass, the interests of Italians our goal. To work with courage and determination".
    Earlier League Senators responded to criticism from Conte, who said the League "unilaterally" decided to start a government crisis on August 8, by shouting repeatedly "without honour, without honour!", "shame!" and "dignity!".
    Conte responded by saying "I see no dignity in your volte-face".
    Conte, referring to League leader Matteo Salvini, said "assigning one's faults to others is the most linear way to dodge responsibility for life, a sure way, but not the best, to save one's leadership. "To err is human, but to give other people the blame is the best way to keep the leadership of your party".
    Salvini pulled the plug on the League-5-Star (M5S) government led by Conte on August 8 to try to capitalise on the League's high poll numbers in a snap election.
    The Senate voted in favour of the confidence motion in the new government between the M5S and the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), which has replaced the League as the M5s's partner.
    PD leader Nicola Zingaretti tweeted after the M5S-PD government won the Senate confidence vote and entered the fullness of its powers: "now the great challenge begins. Let's change Italy together #Senate #governmentconfidence".
    Salvini said he had "sinned by trusting" Conte who "had always said we would go to a vote" but instead formed a new alliance with the PD.
    "The perfume of posts is much more appetising, but honour and loyalty are worth more than a thousand seats," he added.
    The new government has a majority in both houses but it is slimmer in the Senate than in the House, where it sailed through on Monday.
    Salvini accused Conte of having no dignity and being the new Mario Monti earlier.
    "I know someone who seemed like a premier for months," Salvini, who was deputy premier and interior minister under Conte for 14 months, told reporters in the Senate.
    "I don't know what happened then, what they promised him.
    "I expect a premier to have an idea for Italy, not continual insults.
    "He is a man who is aligned with power, without dignity.
    "We have discovered a new Monti, a new Gentiloni".
    Former European Commissioner Monti headed a technocrat government in 2011 to 2013 to lead the country through the debt crisis it was in at the time and he then made an unsuccessful bid to launch a new political party. Salvini also blasted Conte's decision to propose former centre-left premier Paolo Gentiloni as Italy's nominee for the new European Commission. "Gentiloni's nomination confirms that Conte made a pact with the devil, with (Angela) Merkel and (Emmanuel) Macron," Salvini told a press conference in the Senate. "They (the M5S) promised to revolutionize the EU," said Salvini. "Instead they nominated an old PD man".
    During the debate, Conte said that framing a budget bill would be one of the government's first tasks, averting a 23 billion euro vAT hike and including a tax cut for workers by cutting the tax wedge.
    The government will later turn to cutting business taxes, he said.
    Conte said the immigration question "must be managed at a European level and the Dublin regulation must be modified". He added that the government would change Salvini's controversial migrant and security decrees in the light of the "observations" of President Sergio Mattarella who questioned one-million euro fines for NGO ships defying entry bans, and recalled Italy's duty to uphold treaties on sea rescues.
    Other priorities are cutting the number of MPs from 945 to 600, making nurseries free for low income households, and introducing a minimum wage.