ROME — Premier Giuliano Amato was sworn into office Wednesday along with a rehashed center-left coalition already looking frayed after one of his choices refused to take up his ministry post.
Amato, a respected treasury minister in the 18-month-long government of Massimo D'Alema that collapsed last week, is expected to put the government formed Tuesday evening to the required confidence vote in both chambers of Parliament by the end of the week.
Almost immediately after being named, Edo Ronchi, from the Greens, refused to serve as minister for European Union relations after he — and his party — didn't get to keep the environment ministry.
The Greens have another one of their own in another Cabinet post. News reports said Wednesday that the Greens had come up with a replacement for Ronchi, but by the time the swearing-in ceremony began in the presidential palace, the brocaded seat reserved for the holder of the EU ministry post was still vacant.
More than 50 percent is required to win a confidence vote. The Italian news agency AGI said Amato should be able to count on 320 votes in the 630-seat Chamber of Deputies. He should have a wider edge in the Senate.
The center-left, squabbling since it came to power in 1996 under Romano Prodi, set aside disputes in a bid to stay in power until scheduled Parliamentary elections in spring 2001.
Despite the center-left's eagerness to stay in control, it was tough going coming up with a Cabinet.
"All told, it wasn't easy," said Amato, whom President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi asked on Friday to come up with a new government.
The center-left was trounced in April 16 regional elections by forces backed by conservative opposition leader and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, and the coalition told D'Alema he had to go.
Berlusconi, who was premier in 1994, criticized the new government.
"It's a formation which speaks for itself, put in place with the sole purpose of keeping the left in power," said Berlusconi, who had lobbied Ciampi to call elections a year ahead of schedule.
Amato's coalition ranges from former Communists to Communist hard-liners to liberal former Christian Democrats.
Familiar faces include Lamberto Dini, a moderate who remains foreign minister, and Vincenzo Visco, a member of the Democrat Left, a former Communist party, who switches from finance minister to treasury and budget minister.
Many others kept their posts or switched departments.
"It's a photocopy of the D'Alema government," said Berlusconi ally Roberto Maroni of the autonomy-seeking Northern League.
As Socialist premier in the early 1990s, Amato won a reputation for courageously slashing away at Italy's huge budget deficit. His government included several men who were later discredited by kickback scandals, but Amato's integrity was never questioned.