By Daisy Ayliffe - 10th April 2006
Romano Prodi will relaunch the European constitution and engineer an “EU renaissance” his supporters have declared.
The socialist MEP responsible for organising Italian voters overseas, Gianni Pittella says expats have helped the pro-European ‘Ulivo’ alliance secure victory in the Senate.
“We can now expect a renaissance of pro-European sentiment. This is one of the key features of the Italian left," Pittella declared.
"We are committed to relaunching the European constitution and will support greater European integration.”
After hours of vote counting in Italy’s electoral thriller, the former European commission president Prodi claimed victory in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
And the Ulivo coalition says Italian voters living overseas proved decisive in the fiercely contested election.
“The foreign vote was decisive. According to early results, Prodi's centre-left coalition had won a majority in the lower house but lost control of the Senate by just one seat. But now the result of the overseas voters has come in we see Prodi has also won in the senate,” Pittella told EUpolitix.com.
Italian expats were voting for six senate seats. According to the latest figures, the overseas contingency has voted five to one in favour of Prodi’s centre-left coalition.
The overseas constituency elects representatives from Europe, including Russia and Turkey, Asia, Australia, Africa, North America and South America.
Until now, Italians wishing to vote in their country's general elections had to fly back to Italy.
But a constitutional amendment passed in 2000 granted Italians overseas not only the right to vote from abroad, but also the right to elect their own representatives.
In the lower house Prodi’s coalition won by the slimmest of margins.
Ulivo scraped in with a margin of just 25,224 votes out of over 38 million cast – a result that hung on tenths of a per cent.
As Italy struggles to emerge from economic stagnation, many Italians are questioning if the new government will have the clout to tackle a bulging budget deficit and rising public debt.
The country has a history of producing short-lived and unstable governments. Berlusconi was Italy's longest-serving prime minister since WW2.
“It is not just me who fears weak government,” Il Sole24Ore journalist Stefano Folli told reporters on Tuesday.
“The balance of power is now held by senators who don’t even pay taxes in Italy. The other point is that the Socialist party – who are one of the strongest in the Ulivo alliance - has had a very bad election. I think the most dynamic party in the centre left has been seriously weakened.”
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