Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni during a session of the upper house of parliament ahead of a confidence vote for the new government, in Rome, Italy, October 26, 2022. (REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane)
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni completed her rise to power on Wednesday by winning a confidence vote in the country’s Senate on a strong message of support to Ukraine.
"We can only achieve peace by keeping our support for Ukraine, allowing the country to defend itself,” Meloni said during a speech on Wednesday.
The same view was backed by her ally and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a longtime friend of Vladimir Putin who just last week had praised the Russian president in an audio message released by newswire LaPresse.
Meloni, the most far-right leader since the second World War, won the vote on Wednesday with 115 lawmakers in favor and 79 against. She had already won a confidence vote in the lower house on Tuesday.
While there was no question that the coalition would ultimately win the senate vote after its victory in elections last month, support in Italy’s upper house of parliament is traditionally more volatile. The new government’s solid outcome on Wednesday shows that, at least for now, Meloni has the numbers to push her program through.
In her maiden speech to lawmakers Tuesday, Meloni said her government will make its voice heard strongly in proposing reforms to the European Union, while pledging to respect the bloc’s financial rules and criticizing the European Central Bank’s interest rate increases.
Among her first measures, the prime minister is working on a new aid package worth as much as €9.6 billion ($9.6 billion) to help families and businesses through the end of the year without widening the country’s deficit, according to people familiar with the matter.
