PRIME Minister Matteo Renzi's reform agenda for Italy has suffered a setback after 13 senators from his centre-left Democratic Party (PD) withdrew their backing in protest against his moves for constitutional change.
The 39-year-old former mayor of Florence will not be assured of a majority in the Senate without the 13 defectors and their absence will make it extremely difficult for him to push through legislation.
Mr Renzi's plan to abolish the Senate as an elected chamber in order to streamline the passage of legislation, set out when he took office in February, has been held up in the Senate Constitutional Affairs Committee. This week, Mr Renzi removed two PD opponents of the plan from the committee.
In a shock response, 13 PD senators said they were "suspending themselves" from the party, accused Mr Renzi of authoritarian tactics at odds with the constitution and said they wanted an open discussion with the prime minister.
Giuseppe Civati, a PD deputy frequently critical of Mr Renzi, said his removal of the senators from the committee was "a political error" and rebuked him for trying to "eliminate dissent" in the party.
The senators did not say they would leave the PD itself and their action was seen more of a warning shot to Mr Renzi than an immediate threat to his government's survival.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article