The pause in Italys political crisis engineered by prime minister Romano Prodi has given him breathing space but enraged the centre-right opposition.
Prodi puts the crisis on ice, ran the headline in the top-circulation La Repubblica newspaper in Rome.
The besieged Prodi decided to stop the clock late on Tuesday to consider a bit longer his communist allies appeal for compromise on his highly controversial 1998 budget.
More From This Section
Communist Refoundation party leader Fausto Bertinotti, while insisting his party could not support the current budget because of cuts in welfare spending, offered Prodis government a last-minute offer of a deal.
Prodis 17-month-old government relies on the 34 votes of the Marxist party for its majority in the lower house. He has a comfortable majority in the Senate, which he was addressing on Wednesday morning at 9.30 am (0730 GMT).
Prodi told parliament that his centre-left government had gone some way to meet the concerns of the Communist Refoundation party but would hold firm to its plans to press on with economic reform.
He then put off his closing speech to the Chamber of Deputies until Thursday and said he would discuss the crisis with President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro after addressing the Senate.
Some members of the centre-right opposition bloc headed by Silvio Berlusconi were furious over Prodis decision to address the Senate before concluding the debate at the lower house with a vote.
The opposition had put forward a motion for a vote on Prodis address. The vote will now be held on Thursday afternoon.
The centre-right called the move a clear violation of parliamentary rules and threatened to boycott Prodis Senate address or walk out in protest while he speaks.
The opposition said Prodi had no choice but to resign immediately after Bertinotti announced that the coalition no longer had a majority.
This an ex-majority, Berlusconi told an Italian television programme yesterday.
Financial markets fluctuated while parliament debated on Tuesday but investors were still hoping for compromise and stocks and bonds traded not far from all-time highs.
Commentators on Wednesday said a breathing space could be helpful but that the government was not out of the woods and Bertinottis offer could be elusive.
After the debate in the lower house, the majority that supports the government no longer exists and unless something changes, Prodi will have no choice but to resign, a front-page editorial in the La Repubblica newspaper said.
In the heated debate on Tuesday night, Bertinotti told parliament that he thought there might be room for an 11th hour settlement.
I am not saying take it or leave it. Im not saying that the government should accept all of our proposals. What we ask is that they accept at least some of the more significant ones, Bertinotti said.
If approved, the 1998 budget, which seeks cuts of some five trillion lire ($2.5 billion) in welfare spending, could represent Italys ticket to join the launch of European economic and monetary union.
The prime minister appealed to Marxist deputies not to jump ship, saying Italians would not understand why the government should abandon its economic overhaul now when so much progress, and many belt-tightening sacrifices, had already been made.
We ask for the support of the majority...We are open to discussing our (budget) proposals in parliament. We do not want our country to pay a high price, Prodi said.