Prime Minister Joseph Muscat will meet new Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in Rome on Thursday evening.

He will be the first foreign head of government to meet the new Italian premier.

Dr Muscat had a close relationship with Renzi's predecessor Enrico Letta, with the two having worked jointly in areas such as irregular immigration. Dr Muscat had also praised Mr Letta for the dignified way how he  stepped down. Letta resigned after a party mutiny engineered by Mr Renzi.

Mr Renzi, sworn in on Saturday, is facing the first test before a fractious national parliament today as he goes before the Senate to outline ambitious reform plans and seeks to win a confidence vote in his newly installed government.

Backed by his own centre-left Democratic Party (PD), the small centre-right NCD party, centrists and other miscellaneous groups, he should win the vote in the 320-seat upper house.

But there will be close attention to the size of his majority after some leftwingers in his own party initially threatened to vote against the government. If he fell much below the 173 secured by Mr Letta in December, his authority could be weakened from the start.

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