Italy’s Parliament gives final approval to austerity plan- Europe’s economies ‘Like the Titanic’
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s austerity plan won final approval by Parliament, opening the way for measures intended to balance the budget by 2014 and keep the region’s debt crisis at bay.
The Chamber of Deputies voted 314 to 280 in Rome to pass the package of spending cuts and tax increases. Berlusconi had staked his government’s future on the plan, surviving confidence votes on the measures in the Chamber earlier today and the upper house Senate yesterday.
“I’ve worked in the interest of Italians,” the premier said in the Chamber. “I’d love to be able to give them what I promised, a lowering of taxes, but it’s a difficult moment and now it’s just not possible…
Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti said yesterday that Italy, and even the region’s strongest economies, would remain vulnerable until European policy makers come up with a solution for the debt crisis that led Greece, Portugal and Ireland to seek bailouts. “Like with the Titanic, even the first-class passengers can’t be saved,” Tremonti told the Senate.