A small group of left-wing senators on Wednesday announced a potentially serious rebellion against Romano Prodi's centre-left government over its line on Afghanistan.
The eight rebels, members of the Greens and two small communist parties, said they would vote against a measure guaranteeing funding for Italian military missions abroad, including the Nato-led one in Afghanistan.
The threat, although it came from only eight senators, cannot be ignored by Prodi because the governing coalition has a majority of just two in the upper house. Unless the rebels relent, the premier could face the embarrassment of being unable to win approval for a key part of his foreign policy without the votes of the centre-right opposition.
The funding measure must win cabinet approval by Friday, after which it goes before parliament and must be voted on before the start of the summer recess on August 6. If Prodi calls a confidence vote on the question, a common practice when governments want to pull dissenters into line, he risks losing it. This would mean the collapse of his government after only a month in power.
The Communists and Greens in Prodi's coalition have been against Italy's military involvement in Afghanistan from the start and have recently repeated calls for Italian troops to be pulled out. The rest of the coalition is committed to keeping the
1,840 soldiers there for the time being, in line with commitments made to Nato allies by the previous government of Silvio Berlusconi.
A meeting of government allies on Tuesday had appeared to forge an accord making it possible for the nine allies to vote compactly in favour of the funding decree. Under the agreement no new troops or military equipment would be sent to Afghanistan and Italy's civilian aid programmes would be boosted.
But this was not enough for the eight dissidents, as they wrote in a letter to Prodi.
"If the decree on Afghanistan remains as it is, we are against it and we will vote no," they said, complaining that there was no "discontinuity" with the position of the previous centre-right government. The senators' initiative underlined the deep problems that their parties - all avowedly pacifist - have in accepting Italy's military presence in Afghanistan.
Helped by the promise of a parliamentary commission tasked with reviewing foreign missions, the Greens and the Communist Refoundation Party had reluctantly accepted it for now. Both confirmed their official line of support for Prodi
on Wednesday.
But the Party of Italian Communists, which had revealed immediate misgivings about Tuesday's coalition agreement, continued to criticise what it called a "war mission" in the central Asian country. On Wednesday its leader Oliviero Diliberto confirmed the party's firm opposition to the Afghanistan mission and said a decision would be taken on Saturday on what line to take in parliament.
Despite the mini-revolt announced on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema, who is also deputy premier, said there was no question of withdrawing troops. "Our mission is not changing. The soldiers will keep their tasks and the same rules of engagement that they have had until now," he said on the sidelines of a visit to Berlin.
D'Alema also voiced confidence that, when it came to the crunch, all members of the centre left would vote solidly in favour of the military funding decree. Meanwhile, the centre right opposition accused the ruling coalition of "ambiguity" and demanded to know what the government's line was on Afghanistan.
"Italians are asking whether the centre left still has a majority where foreign policy is concerned," said Forza Italia MP Margherita Boniver.
The centrist UDC party, a junior member of Berlusconi's centre-right opposition alliance, said it would vote for the refunding of the foreign missions in line with the foreign policy choices of the previous government. Its votes would cover the gap left by the eight centre-left rebels but would underline Prodi's political embarrassment if he was forced to rely on them.
