It will not be a simple passage that Berlusconi, expected tomorrow in Montecitorio, is preparing to face in Parliament to obtain a vote of confidence on Friday. The President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, has in fact placed, with an official note, a precise question to the prime minister and to Parliament, not only on the quantity of the majority, but also on its quality. In other words, on the ability of that majority which "reassembled itself last June with the contribution of a new group" to "guarantee essential obligations, also in relation to international commitments".
All this after underlining the "institutional findings" of yesterday's vote in the Chamber which rejected article 1 of the budget law. The President of the Chamber, Gianfranco Fini, will go to the Quirinale this afternoon and will have to point out the difficulties in proceeding with normal parliamentary work.
Meanwhile the Council for the regulation decided in the morning that the process for the approval of the state budget report, after the rejection of Article 1, must be considered concluded: the examination of the measure cannot go ahead. An opinion openly contested by Fabrizio Cicchitto at the end of the group leaders' conference which took place in the late morning. On the report “a technical path is being studied – Cicchitto explained again -. The Quirinale and the Government are in contact. But we dispute the syllogism of the opposition according to which the rejection of this document is equivalent to a lack of confidence in the Government”.
What happened yesterday in Montecitorio is a completely new fact, because on previous occasions, after the negative vote in Parliament, the prime ministers (Andreotti and Goria) had had to resign and the budget had therefore been approved by successive governments. The intervention of the President of the Republic with reference to the institutional importance of yesterday's vote, in fact, weakens the thesis of the majority and of Berlusconi according to which yesterday's was nothing more than a "technical" accident along the way.
The oppositions continue to ask for the resignation of the government, while in the majority everything is in motion and it is not excluded that in view of the vote of confidence, and the objective difficulty in which the Government finds itself, the small but numerous dissidents of the PDL, but also of the League to make themselves heard again.
