Senate voting on Renzi reform resumes - update

(ANSA) - Rome, July 29 - The Senate resumed voting Tuesday on a slew of 7,800 amendments after a meeting of party whips failed to produce an agreement that would break an ongoing deadlock between opponents and supporters of Premier Matteo Renzi's hotly contested Constitutional reform bill.
    "Attempts at mediation failed," Senate Speaker Pietro Grasso said. "I did everything possible in favor of any solution at all. I regretfully concede that we must resume voting".
    The Senate proceeded to reject one of the 6,000 amendments filed by the opposition Left Ecology Freedom (SEL) party.
    Opponents of the bill have filed a barrage of some 7,800 amendments to the bill that would revamp the Senate, essentially stalling it since it hit the Senate floor last week.
    Grasso had suspended voting after dissidents within the premier's Democratic Party (PD) came up with an offer of mediation to break the deadlock, but opponents and proponents of the bill fell out over those suggestions as well.
    PD Senator Vannino Chiti, a critic of Renzi's reforms, suggested postponing a final vote until the first week of September, if opponents agree to withdraw some of their amendments so they can be voted on before August recess begins. Renzi had wanted the first reading of the bill to be completed before the summer break.
    The center-right Forza Italia (FI) party of ex premier Silvio Berlusconi and the splinter New Center Right (NCD) party, both of which support Renzi's bill, seconded Chiti's motion.
    SEL said it is open to negotiation but not as long as the electoral reform pact between Renzi and Berlusconi still stands.
    The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement declared its 200 amendments were there to stay, and the anti-immigrant, separatist Northern League also declined to consider Chiti's proposal.
    "The conditions for mediation are not there," PD Senate whip Luigi Zanda concluded. "Those who filed 6,000 amendments said they won't reduce them. So let the work continue following the government's timetable". Senators as of this week have been ordered to work 9am-midnight, seven days a week and with strict speaking time limits, in order to complete a first reading of the reform bill before parliament's summer recess next month.