A government welfare bill that has divided the ruling center-left coalition cleared the Lower House on Thursday and now faces a final hurdle in the Senate where Romano Prodi's coalition has a wafer-thin majority.
The bill won its passage through the 630-seat house by a margin of 26 as almost all the Italian Communists' Party deputies deserted the chamber to demonstrate their distaste for the measure.
When the welfare bill arrives shortly in the Senate, Prodi will need practically all his unhappy left-wing allies to vote with him. Otherwise he will face the embarrassment of being unable to win approval for a key plank of his government's policy.
Among other things, the welfare bill softens a pension reform pushed through by the previous center-right government which would raise the retirement age from 57 to 60 on January 1 2008.
Under an accord struck between unions, employers and Prodi's government last summer, and translated into the bill which won approval on Thursday, the jump will be made gradually, between now and 2011.
Leftists in Prodi's coalition wanted "improvements" made to the welfare package, which was recently given an informal seal of approval by a workers' referendum.
They won certain concessions during debate in parliamentary committees but the changes angered Lamberto Dini, one of Prodi's centrist allies, so much that he threatened to bring the government down over them.
Source: Xinhua
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