Italy recalls Senate at height of holiday season amid govt crisis

13 Aug, 2019 11:56 / Updated 5 years ago

Italian senators will on Tuesday try to hammer out agreement on a possible no-confidence vote in Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s government after Interior Minister Matteo Salvini pulled the plug on the teetering coalition, AFP said.

Senators have been recalled at the height of the holiday season after the heads of political groupings in the house on Monday failed to agree on a timetable for the vote demanded by Salvini. It is not clear how many senators will make it back to Rome for the vote.

Last week, he called for swift elections after withdrawing the support of his anti-immigration League party from the alliance with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S).

The Senate must decide whether to initiate a no-confidence vote in the 14-month-old administration of Conte, an independent agreed to by Deputy Prime Minister Salvini and M5S leader Luigi Di Maio last year.