Italy PM Seeks to Reassure With Debt Reduction Pledge
- Conte speaks in lower house after program roiled markets
- Government wins second confidence vote Wednesday evening
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Italy’s new Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, whose populist government has already been buffeted by financial markets, sought to reassure on his fiscal expansion plans with a pledge to gradually reduce the country’s massive debt burden.
Political novice Conte, 53, won the support of lower house lawmakers in a confidence vote Wednesday evening, with 350 votes in favor and 236 against. The law professor won an earlier vote in the Senate on Tuesday, but his speech in the upper house roiled investors concerned at measures including a “citizen’s income” and a two-tiered flat tax that could cost over 100 billion euros ($120 billion) in the first year.