ROME (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta won a confidence vote in the lower house as expected on Wednesday, clearing the first hurdle to confirming his parliamentary majority ahead of a vote in the Senate later in the day.
Lawmakers backed the government 379 to 212. Letta, head of a coalition between the centre-left Democratic Party and smaller centrist and centre-right parties, asked parliament to back a broad programme of reforms which he said would lift Italy's stagnant economy after two years of recession.
