The Italian House of Representatives approved the government's revised budget on Saturday. In a vote of confidence, 327 members of the coalition of the populist Five-Star Movement and the right wing party Lega voiced their confidence, 228 voted against the draft budget, one MP abstained.
After several weeks of negotiations with the EU Commission, the coalition in Rome had revised its original draft budget in order to prevent a deficit criminal procedure and billion-dollar fines.
The EU Commission had rejected Italy's original budget plans in October. It justified the initial rejection of the draft budget of a Member State as being in breach of the budgetary rules of the European Union.
In the face of a looming excessive deficit procedure, which could have resulted in billions in fines for Rome or the cancellation of EU aid, the Italian government had announced cuts in its budget for the coming year.
The Senate approved the new draft budget last weekend. The 2019 budget now foresees a new debt of 2.04 of the gross domestic product - instead of the originally planned 2.4 percent. The economic growth for 2019 is therefore forecast at 1.0 percent - instead of 1.5 percent as before. Italy's debt burden is around 130 percent of its gross domestic product.