By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Feb 22 2007 (IPS)

The Italian government is in crisis after it failed to win a vote Wednesday on its foreign policy programme. Although the ruling centre-left coalition held only a very slight majority in the Senate, the defeat of the motion came as a major surprise to Prime Minister Romano Prodi.

Two Communist senators and a pair of independent ‘senators-for-life’ unexpectedly withdrew their support to the programme, and that was enough to bring the government down.

On the eve of the vote, foreign minister Massimo D’Alema said the government will need full support for its foreign policy, referring to the Communist and Green parties. These parties are upset by the government’s decision to allow expansion of a major U.S. military base in Vicenza in northeast Italy, and oppose re-financing of Italy’s military mission in Afghanistan.

Italy supports the 32,000-strong North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan with around 1,800 soldiers.

In recent weeks the more radical groups in the nine-party ruling coalition repeatedly blamed Prodi’s administration for going back on the centre-left’s ‘peaceful’ 2006 election message. Prodi’s decision to allow the United States to expand its military base in Vicenza led to mass anti-U.S. protests.

The collapse of the nine-month-old government has reopened the way for Silvio Berlusconi, the former centre-right prime minister defeated less than a year ago, to return to office after a new election.

Through his five years of administration, Berlusconi remained a loyal Bush Administration ally, while the government that succeeded his rapidly brought all remaining Italian troops back from Iraq.

D’Alema openly criticised U.S. policy in Iraq and Somalia, though he declared that Italy must respect its commitments to NATO in Afghanistan.

But now, is the passion over U.S. military matters so strong among government supporters that they are ready to surrender power over it?

“No, it isn’t,” Sabina Siniscalchi, member of parliament from the Communist Refoundation Party told IPS. “In this case, pacifism is a mere alibi used by a few divergent voices within the party, though they’re a very small minority,” she said, referring to a dissident colleague who voted against the foreign policy bill. The other dissenting senator was from the Italian Communist party.

“Of course, as a party, we have often deplored the Prime Minister’s decisions over military issues but we eventually agreed to support D’Alema’s foreign policy because pacifism cannot be separated from realism, and we know that the process of change started by this government only a few months ago will take time.”

For the first time in more than five years, Siniscalchi said, “we heard again words like peace, civil cooperation, diplomacy; since January we’re in the U.N. Security Council, and Italy is doing its best to tackle those international conflicts we have contributed to blowing up.”

Siniscalchi said that although this will be a slow process, “we all have seen clear signs of discontinuity towards the former government’s political choices, and our sense of responsibility should have suggested to us that some compromise is needed to achieve results.”

The only tangible result, however, is that after the failed vote Prodi handed in his government’s resignation to President Giorgio Napolitano. This does not necessarily mean a return to the polls.

Napolitano began talks with political leaders Thursday to discuss formation of a new government. Talks are expected to continue through Friday.

“Prodi is willing to stay if, and only if, he will receive guarantees of full support from all coalition parties,” said his spokesman Silvio Sircana.

Many of the divisions are over Italian policy towards the United States. Last Saturday about 50,000 people protested in Vicenza against expansion of the U.S. air force base.

The collapse of the centre-left government will not help their cause. “We didn’t want a government crisis,” Cinzia Bottene, leader of the ‘no-base’ movement told IPS.

D’Alema has said some of the far-left leaders are “tragically immature”.

“They prefer giving this country to Berlusconi again,” he told the daily La Repubblica. The paper carried a headline Thursday: ‘Another Berlusconi is possible’.

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