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TEHRAN, Apr 24 - Italy's government approved an economic growth plan in the early hours of Wednesday after a bad-tempered cabinet meeting that exposed divisions in the ruling coalition and fuelled speculation about a government collapse.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - The infighting overshadowed media coverage of the "growth decree" which called for tax breaks and investment incentives and for simplified procedures for public tenders.
The ruling parties, the right-wing League and anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, are feuding as they compete for votes ahead of European Parliament elections on May 26, stoking investor fears that the government could fall.
The government had presented the decree as a landmark in its efforts to kickstart Italian growth, which has lagged euro zone peers for two decades, but it instead served to underline an intensifying feud between the coalition partners' leaders.
5-Star chief Luigi Di Maio showed up for the meeting more than an hour late, after using a TV appearance to call for a junior League minister to resign over a corruption scandal. League leader Matteo Salvini has refused to sack the minister.
"It's official - there are two governments," read the front-page headline in national daily newspaper La Repubblica.
Di Maio and Salvini repeatedly say they want the alliance to continue even as they attack each other on a range of issues, and they have shown no willingness to compromise over the future of the League official at the centre of the scandal.
Armando Siri, a transport ministry undersecretary and economic adviser to Salvini, has been put under investigation for allegedly accepting bribes to promote the interests of renewable energy firms. Siri denies any wrongdoing.
"I plan to govern for a full mandate and I have no intention of sending Italians to (early) elections," Salvini told reporters on Wednesday.
He added that he would not push for a cabinet reshuffle to have more weight in government after the EU elections, where the League is likely to be the largest party, opinion polls suggest.
He said Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte - an academic who is from neither ruling party but is close to 5-Star - had not asked for Siri's resignation. Shortly afterwards Conte said he would speak to Siri, without giving further details.
Source: Reuters
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