The Senate on Wednesday
approved the government's bill to change the Constitution to
overhaul Italy's political machinery with 180 votes in favour,
112 against and one abstention.
The bill now returns to the Lower House for definitive
approval.
Premier Matteo Renzi has said a referendum will be held in
the autumn to ratify the reform, which features a controversial
transformation of the Upper House into a leaner assembly of
local-government representatives.
"Today is the day in which what seemed impossible becomes
possible," Renzi said on his Twitter account.
Before the vote, Renzi confirmed that he will retire from
political life if he loses an autumn referendum on
Constitutional reform.
"I repeat here: if I were to lose the referendum I would
consider my career over because I deeply believe in the value of
the dignity of politics", he said.
Renzi told Senators their "gesture" in voting to supersede
the Senate "has no equal not only in Italian history but in the
history of the EU".
Renzi said that, with its reform scrapping the Senate as
equal to the House, the government isn't "touching the system of
checks and balances envisaged by the Constitution, we aren't
changing the role of the Italian president as defined by the
founding fathers.
"This reform makes the parliamentary system less
constrained," he added.
"In these years, dear Senators who have voted for this
reform, they have shouted at you: you're passing reforms behind
closed doors but the people is not with you.
"Well, we're going to see what side the people is on this
reform" in the referendum.
"We'll see if the citizens think like those who are
betting on failure or on those who are betting on the future of
Italy".
Renzi praised former president Giorgio Napolitano, saying
the reformist drive his government has embarked on would not be
possible without him.
Renzi referred to Napolitano's speech in 2013 after
Napolitano reluctantly agreed to be re-elected for an
unprecedented second term and blasted Italy's political class
for not addressing the country's problems.
"If it had not been for that speech in April 2013, this
reform would not exist and this parliamentary term would not be
running," Renzi said.
Renzi told the Senate Wednesday that since he formed his
government in February 2014 politics has regained its primacy
over economic and financial phenomena.
"Italy is not doing very well, but better because in two
years politics has shown that by believing, things can be done,"
Renzi said.
He said "after years of inebriation of technical acronyms,
of politics being subaltern to economic and financial phenomena,
years of political apathy, politics has regained its proper
place".
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