Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi ’s austerity plan won final approval by Parliament, opening the way for measures intended to balance the budget by 2014 and keep the region’s debt crisis at bay.
The Chamber of Deputies voted 314 to 280 in Rome to pass thepackage of spending cuts and tax increases. Berlusconi had staked his government’s future on the plan, surviving confidence votes on the measures in the Chamber earlier today and the upper house Senate yesterday.
“I’ve worked in the interest of Italians,” the premier said in the Chamber. “I’d love to beable to give them what I promised, a lowering of taxes, but it’s a difficult moment and now it’s just not possible.”
Berlusconi pushed for quick passage of the billafter investors began dumping Italian securities on concern that Italy , with the region’s second-highest debt, would become thenext victim of Europe ’s sovereign crisis. The selloff pushed the 10-year bond yield to a 14-year high 6.02 percent on July 12 and sent the benchmark stock index to the lowest since July 2009.
The yield premium that investors demand to hold Italian debt over German bunds rose 17 basis points today to 306 and the 10-year yield gained 12 basis points to 5.76 percent.
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