Italy’s new populist government officially took office on Wednesday after winning parliament’s backing. The alliance between the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) and the far-right League was approved by the chamber of deputies with 350 votes in favor, 236 against and 35 abstentions. Wednesdays vote came a day after the upper house senate approved the government of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. Approval in both houses of parliament gives 53-year-old academic Conte, a political novice, the mandate to carry out his program for a "government of change." Conte told the lower house that his government aimed to increase growth and simultaneously reduce the debt mountain -- the third largest in the world in absolute terms. "We will negotiate at the European level ... and we hope to have the firmness and determination needed to be listened to by our partners," he said. His program also takes a hard line on immigration, promising to curb new arrivals and speed up expulsions of illegal migrants. On Wednesday, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini went a step further saying that he wanted asylum centers to become closed-off structures so that migrants "arent strolling about our cities". A lawyer with little political experience, Conte was nominated by Salvini and Five Star head Luigi Di Maio -- both of whom are now also his deputy prime ministers. In his first policy speech on Tuesday, Conte called for "obligatory" redistribution of asylum seekers around the EU and a review of sanctions against Russia. He also reaffirmed several of the coalitions key manifesto pledges, including rejection of austerity in an economy weighed down by the eurozones second-largest debt ratio. "We want to reduce our public debt, but we want to do so with growth and not with austerity measures," he told senators. Ahead of his first engagements, Conte reiterated the governments intention to stay in the EU. "Europe is our home," Conte said, adding that he wanted a "stronger but also fairer Europe". But the governments ambitious anti-austerity policies -- which include rolling back pension reform, slashing taxes and a basic universal income for Italys poorest-- have worried Brussels, given Italys huge public debt. "We will get through the summer without difficulties, but there will be problems in the autumn if the new government implements even only 50 percent of what it has planned," head of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) Klaus Regling told the German newspaper Handelsblatt on Wednesday. Opposition critics accused Conte of spouting generalities in his two long speeches to parliament over the past two days and condemned him for telling lawmakers he was proud to lead a government that some have defined as "populist". "You claimed to be populist, but horrible crimes have been committed in this country in the name of populism, racial laws approved and genocide committed in Europe," said Graziano Delrio, a senior figure in the center-left Democratic Party. Conte makes his debut in the international arena at this weeks G7 summit in Canada. Since being sworn in as interior minister, Salvini has already made waves. He wasted no time addressing immigration, stressing at the weekend that Italy "cannot be Europes refugee camp" on a visit to Sicily, one of the countrys main refugee landing points The 45-year-old said the "good times for illegals are over" in a country where around 700,000 migrants have arrived since 2013. The bullish minister also caused a diplomatic gaffe with Tunisia after accusing the North African country of exporting "convicts" to Italy. Tunisias foreign ministry summoned their Italian ambassador and expressed their "deep surprise" at Salvinis comments in light of the two countries "cooperation in the fight against illegal immigration".