Senate Defeat Sparks Prodi Government Crisis

Romano Prodi's centre-left Italian government has plunged into its most serious crisis since taking office nine months ago after a shattering parliamentary rebuff over its foreign policy.

Divisions within Mr Prodi's sprawling nine-party coalition over the extension of a US military base and Italy's open-ended commitment to the NATO-led force in Afghanistan lay behind a two-vote defeat in the Senate, Italy's upper house.

Last night, Mr Prodi called a cabinet meeting at which he said he would make an announcement.

He had earlier signalled he would be seeing the head of state, President Giorgio Napolitano, who oversees the making and breaking of governments.

Since he had not lost a formal confidence vote, Mr Prodi was not obliged to stand down, but members of the right-wing opposition, led by Silvio Berlusconi, claimed he had been stripped of his credibility.

"There is no majority any more", a jubilant Renato Schifani, Mr Berlusconi's chief Senate whip, declared. "There is no Prodi government any more."

There was uproar in the upper house when the result was known and, in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house, scuffles broke out between rival MPs.

The foreign minister, Massimo D'Alema, said on the eve of the vote that the government should go if it lost.

Seeking backing for his policies after weeks of growing controversy, Mr D'Alema said that to have rejected a US request to double the size of its facilities at Vicenza, in northern Italy, would have been an "act of hostility".

Two radical left Senators withheld their votes, robbing the government of the outright majority it needed.

The row over the base has become increasingly linked to demands from the left for an exit strategy in Afghanistan where Italy has a 1,900-strong troop contingent.