First: The Senate approves the constitutional reform by the Meloni government

The Italian Senate has approved Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's controversial constitutional reform. Yesterday, 109 deputies voted in favor of the reform in the smaller of the two chambers of Parliament in Rome, while 77 voted against it. Thus, the reform overcame the first obstacle. The essence of this is that the Prime Minister in Italy is directly elected.

Direct election of the Prime Minister

After the vote, cheers broke out among the government parties, but the opposition protested and symbolically suspended the constitution. The constitutional reform stipulates that in the future the prime minister will not be tasked by the president with forming the government, but will be elected directly by the people for a period of five years.

In addition, a 55% majority bonus will be offered to the party that receives the largest number of votes. This bonus is intended to ensure that the winner of the election automatically receives a comfortable majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, even if he does not receive an absolute majority of the votes.

The House of Representatives must vote

The Constitution Amendment Bill, which was approved by the Senate, will now be sent to the House of Representatives for a vote. With 109 votes, the project did not obtain the two-thirds majority required to avoid a referendum. He is also not expected to get one in the House. So it was just the first step until final approval.

In Italy, every constitutional change requires a two-thirds majority in both houses of Parliament. If not, it must be voted on in a referendum. More recently, then-Prime Minister Matteo Renzi failed in the constitutional referendum in 2016 and was forced to resign as a result.