With 11 votes in favor and 9 against, the Senate Constitutional Affairs Committee yesterday approved the proposal to adopt as a basic text the government-initiated bill on the premiership, which provides for the introduction in the Constitution of the direct election of the Prime Minister. At the end of the general debate, Reform Minister Elisabetta Casellati spoke in the committee, reiterating that the reform does not touch the powers of the Head of State and branding the "barattellum" - that is, the accusation made by the oppositions of a "barter" between autonomy reform and premiership reform - as an "improper and unpleasant slogan”. The commission's vote comes just on the heels of the first okay by the Chamber of the Calderoli bill on differentiated autonomy.
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