Italian President Giorgio Napolitano urged political parties to show unity on the nation's international commitments on Monday as lawmakers prepared for a tense vote on Italy's peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan.
Without referring directly to the mission, the subject of rising political tension, the head of state spoke of the "need for cooperation at all levels and a need for continuity in institutional life".
The Senate, where Premier Romano Prodi's centre-left government has a razor-thin majority, is scheduled on Tuesday to vote on a bill guaranteeing financing for Italy's military missions abroad, including the Afghan one.
Hard leftists and pacifists in Prodi's nine-party alliance want Italy's soldiers pulled out of Afghanistan and Tuesday's vote is expected to be a crucial test of coalition unity.
If the government failed to pass the measure with its own votes, it would display the lack of a majority on foreign policy and fuel opposition demands that it step down.
The leaders of two opposition parties, the centrist UDC and the rightwing National Alliance, said that they would formally ask Napolitano to declare a government crisis if the centre left failed to muster the minimum majority of 158 votes from within its own ranks.
The funding measure is almost certain to pass because the UDC party has said it will vote in favour out of solidarity with Italian forces abroad.
But the decree may not get the overwhelming support that is usually seen as desirable when the nation's military forces are involved in important operations abroad.
Opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi has said he is not sure whether the rest of the opposition will vote in favour because of dissatisfaction over the Prodi government's foreign policy.
Berlusconi and leading members of his Forza Italia party met at his villa outside Milan on Monday afternoon, reportedly to discuss Tuesday's vote.
PRODI POLICY CRITICISED.
Among other things, Berlusconi criticised the way an Italian reporter's release by Taliban kidnappers was secured: by using a non-governmental mediator and in return for the release of five jailed Taliban members.
The opposition has also lambasted Prodi for refusing to consider changes to the rules of engagement governing what action Italian soldiers in Afghanistan can take to defend themselves.
"If we were to vote now, we wouldn't vote in favour," said former foreign minister Gianfranco Fini, leader of the rightwing National Alliance party.
"The (financing) decree doesn't ensure that our soldiers, who are increasingly in a theatre of war, have the minimum security conditions that are indispensable," he added.
Prodi, in response, has said that any Senators voting against the Afghan mission will be "trampling on national dignity" by refusing to show firm support for Italian troops deployed in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Speaking in Berlin on Sunday, he insisted that he was "not worried" about the vote.
Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema on Monday expressed the same confidence: "The measure that finances our soldiers abroad will be approved by the Senate just as it was approved by the House," D'Alema said.
The financing bill was approved in the House with a large, bipartisan majority.
