Italian president accepts Prodi's resignation

REUTERS ^ | 02-21-2007 | By Phil Stewart and Robin Pomeroy

[Traianus]

Italian president accepts Prodi's resignation Wed Feb 21, 2007 7:09 PM GMT Email This Article | Print This Article | RSS [-] Text [+]

By Phil Stewart and Robin Pomeroy

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's president accepted Prime Minister Romano Prodi's resignation on Wednesday following the government's defeat in a Senate vote on foreign policy.

Prodi, in power for nine months, went to the Quirinale (president's palace) after a cabinet crisis meeting.

President Giorgio Napolitano, the supreme arbiter of Italian politics, will hold talks with party leaders on Thursday to discuss the way forward.

Divided over the Afghan war and ties with the U.S. military, Prodi's centre-left government was unable to secure enough votes for a motion backing Rome's foreign policy.

There was no constitutional requirement for Prodi to step down. But Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema had said before the Senate vote that the government should resign if it did not command majority support on foreign policy.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1788697/posts

[livius]

He wasn't great and he was very liberal on everything, to put it mildly (gay "marriage," abortion, etc.), but he was at least somewhat supportive of US efforts. There was a big lefty demonstration last weekend against the Vinceza airbase expansion (which Prodi approved), and one of the Communist MP's attended. There was some speculation that the extreme left, which has recently become more powerful in Italy, was working up an attack on Prodi.

[Mount Athos]

this story is newer/updated because the prez accepted the resignation

[Tulsa Ramjet]

I thought Prodi was a soccer player?

[Alter Kaker]

Don't count him out. Prodi may well form a new government, or accept a senior position in a new government. Italy has had 9 trillion government since 1945, but with few exceptions (Berlusconi is a notable one) the governments have all tended to be run by the same people.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1788697/posts?page=1#1

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

On that matter, if the thread author hadn't purposely written his own thread title.........

"Italian president accepts Prodi's resignation" should have been the thread title. This is exactly why there are so many duplicate threads running around here.....

The price of bandwidth just keeps going up.

[George W. Bush]

Our European friends are pulling back. It was inevitable when they faced anti-war voters and an irresponsible opposition party. Even Britain can't hold it together.

[Mount Athos]

Offering resignation and having it accepted are two different things. The older article mentions resignation being offered, but not accepted. So this article is different and contains a key update.

[livius]

the governments have all tended to be run by the same people

I'm beginning to think that's true everywhere...

It will be interesting to see what happens. One thing that I found very strange and certainly disturbing about last weekend's demonstration was that people were carrying signs supporting the revived Red Brigades (one of their plans, IIRC, was to kidnap and kill Burlusconi). Is this an extreme turn, or is it just politics as usual in Italy?

[Irish_Thatcherite]

Italy has had 9 trillion government since 1945

LOL! A bit like Ireland in the '80s....

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

"Cnn is now reporting that Prodi has resigned and that the Italian president has accepted his resignation"

From post 1, previous thread. You gotta read......

[Mount Athos]

This news article contains information which the other does not.

The other news article does not say that the resignation was accepted.

This news article does.

No point in discussing this further.

[Alter Kaker]

Is this an extreme turn, or is it just politics as usual in Italy?

Politics as usual.

Sono pazzi questi Italiani... :-)

[Antoninus]

Excellent news. Bring back Silvio!

[livius]

Ah. That's what I thought!

[Getsmart64]

Whoa!!!...This is news to me and I live in Italy....if this is true...expect Berlesconi...to come back into power...my Italian neighbor and I tend to talk a little bit about politics and he never mentioned this to me...and we..us Americans...so far haven't heard anything about this past weekend other than stay away from Vicenza...altho I am outside Aviano....it's been business as usual around here from what I can tell....

[familyop]

Unnecessarily excerpted columns are being posted to you, Freepers, to fool you and stop full posts from showing you the truth! See the content that I bolded for emphasis!

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's president accepted Prime Minister Romano Prodi's resignation on Wednesday following the government's defeat in a Senate vote on foreign policy.

Prodi, in power for nine months, went to the Quirinale (president's palace) after a cabinet crisis meeting.

President Giorgio Napolitano, the supreme arbiter of Italian politics, will hold talks with party leaders on Thursday to discuss the way forward.

Divided over the Afghan war and ties with the U.S. military, Prodi's centre-left government was unable to secure enough votes for a motion backing Rome's foreign policy.

There was no constitutional requirement for Prodi to step down. But Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema had said before the Senate vote that the government should resign if it did not command majority support on foreign policy.

Napolitano's options include dissolving parliament and calling an election. He could also ask Prodi to form a new government or broker the formation of a different government, possibly involving technocrats.

The defeat was the most serious setback for Prodi's coalition government, also deeply divided over a host of domestic issues ranging from the budget, pension reform and a bill giving legal recognition to gay and unwed couples.

The parliamentary motion, a broadly worded declaration of support for foreign policy, received 158 votes in favour, below the necessary majority of 160 votes, and was followed by opposition calls for the government to quit.

Prodi's coalition had only a one-seat majority in the Senate but in the past had managed to muster support by calling confidence votes.

Renato Schifani, Senate leader of the biggest opposition party, Forza Italia, held up a copy of Wednesday's La Stampa newspaper which had quoted D'Alema's warning to coalition pacifists who oppose Italy's military presence in Afghanistan.

"I have in my hand one of the most important newspapers in the country with a declaration by Foreign Minister D'Alema: 'Resignation if we have no majority'," Schifani said to cheers from allies.

"There is no majority any more ... There is no Prodi government any more. The Prodi government has fallen in this chamber."

D'ALEMA OR EVERYONE?

Earlier a political source in the Catholics-to-communists ruling coalition said he expected Prodi to survive the ordeal but said D'Alema, who is also deputy prime minister, would likely resign as foreign minister.

Beyond Afghanistan, where Italy has 1,900 troops on a NATO-led mission, one of the most divisive issues has been a plan to expand a U.S. military base in northern Italy.

Protests against the plan drew tens of thousands of Italians, including some senior coalition members, last weekend.

D'Alema said the government was compelled to allow the base expansion. "Revoking the authorisation would have been a hostile act on our part against the United States," he said.

But one leftist senator announced he would resign rather than vote for D'Alema's motion. "I am against the war in Afghanistan and against the U.S. base in Vicenza," said Franco Turigliatto, with the Communist Refoundation party.

(Additional reporting by Paolo Biondi, Roberto Landucci, Giselda Vagnoni in Rome)

[familyop]

I'm not accusing you, Traianus, as you gave no commentary and might have had a good reason to excerpt. But several other people here have posted excerpts along with misleading comments.

And I, for one, hope that people in Italy become more well informed and that widespread sentiment in Italy turns around more toward fighting in the War on Terror. If we in America see the truth of what is going on in European countries, maybe we can convey better information to them and help to bring a change for the better.