The government said on Wednesday it will scrap a recent decree allowing the expulsion of EU citizens considered dangerous and approve a new one by the end of the month.
The announcement came amid the apparent risk that scores of immigrants expelled under the November decree could soon return with impunity because the measure would not be converted into law by the end of the year.
''I am convinced we have found the solution,'' Premier Romano Prodi said.
The centre-right opposition, meanwhile, accused the government of incompetence and demanded the resignation of Interior Minister Giuliano Amato, if not the entire centre-left administration.
Earlier in the day the Minister for Relations with Parliament, Vannini Chiti, said the Interior Ministry was working on a new decree correcting errors in the first one.
He said it would be approved by the cabinet on December 28 and the old one, which has already been approved in the Senate, would allowed to expire.
The manoeuvre, embarrassing for the government, became necessary when President Giorgio Napolitano announced that there were ''erroneous references'' in the bill which was about to go to the House for final approval.
The implication was clearly that he might not sign the legislation into law, leaving dozens of recent expulsions without any legal basis.
Chiti said it was impossible to correct the law and have it approved by both houses of parliament by the end-of-year deadline so the only solution was a new decree.
He also said the fresh measure would not contain the provisions regarding discrimination against gays which were slipped into the first decree at the last minute.
These provisions, which were the source of another bout of quarrelling in the centre-left coalition, will now be put in a separate draft law.
The expulsion provisions were drawn up rapidly last month in the wake of the public alarm which followed the murder of an Italian woman in Rome by a Romanian immigrant.
According to Italian media, 408 immigrants have since been expelled under the provision.
