Italy votes on ending exile of royal family

The Italian Senate is due to vote today on allowing male heirs of the House of Savoy, the former royal family, to return to Italy. Descendants of King Vittorio Emmanuele III, who collaborated with Benito Mussolini, are banned from setting foot on Italian soil under the post-war constitution.

Fears of political meddling by the family, who live in exile in Switzerland, have faded, but each time progress has been made towards lifting the ban outspoken remarks by the Savoys have damaged their case. Now 64-year-old Vittorio Emmanuele and his son, Emmanuele Filiberto, 32, have given written assurances of their "loyalty to the Republican constitution and our President of the Republic". Left-wing parties, who have long demanded a formal oath of allegiance, have welcomed the gesture.

The centre-right government has the numbers to push the change through but such a symbolic decision would be stronger if it had wider support. Any removal of the ban is at an early stage. The necessary amendment must also be voted on in the lower Chamber of Deputies. Then both chambers must approve it a second time before it could take effect.

Vittorio Emmanuele left Italy at the age of nine when the monarchy was rejected in a referendum. Italians are generally weary of the royal soap opera and would be happy to allow the Savoys to return.

Yet when in 1997 the government of Romano Prodi moved towards repealing the ban, Vittorio Emmanuele gave a television interview in which he said the racial laws signed by his grandfather and Mussolini "were not all that bad". Emmanuele Filiberto said last weekend his family might not want to leave Switzerland.