{"id":18573,"date":"2018-10-22T16:36:57","date_gmt":"2018-10-22T13:36:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/?p=18573"},"modified":"2018-10-22T16:36:57","modified_gmt":"2018-10-22T13:36:57","slug":"italy-calls-for-dialogue-on-necessary-breach-of-deficit-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/archives\/18573","title":{"rendered":"Italy Calls for Dialogue on `Necessary’ Breach of Deficit Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Italy Calls for Dialogue on `Necessary’ Breach of Deficit Rules<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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By\u00a0Kevin Costelloe\u00a0and\u00a0Lorenzo Totaro<\/p>\n

(Bloomberg) —\u00a0<\/section>\n

Italy\u2019s populist government promised it won\u2019t let its budget deficit widen further than currently planned and called for dialogue with the European Union to address their differences.<\/p>\n

In a letter to the European Commission published Monday, Finance Minister\u00a0Giovanni Tria\u00a0said the government is ready to act to ensure it doesn\u2019t exceed the 2.4 percent target for 2019. He said he\u2019s aware that his spending plans don\u2019t comply with EU rules and he wants “constructive” talks with officials in Brussels. Prime Minister\u00a0Giuseppe Conte, speaking in Rome, said the deficit target should be seen as an upper limit and it could still be narrower.<\/p>\n

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Giovanni Tria<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The decision to increase spending was \u201cdifficult though necessary,\u201d Tria said in his letter. He cited slow economic growth and the \u201cdifficult economic situation the poorest segments of the Italian society are facing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Italian bonds rose slightly, with the spread over German 10-year yields narrowing by 6 basis points to 296. The gap reached a five-year high of 341 basis points during trading on Friday.<\/p>\n

Tria has come under fire from officials and investors since bowing to pressure from Italy\u2019s coalition heavyweights\u00a0Matteo Salvini\u00a0and\u00a0Luigi Di Maio\u00a0to allocate resources to their key election promises: tax cuts, more benefits spending, and a lower retirement age. The Commission expressed \u201cserious concern\u201d about Italy\u2019s budget plans in a\u00a0letter on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Delayed Benefits<\/h3>\n

The finance chief offered no indication that he plans to back down from the headline spending targets, paving the way for the EU to take the unprecedented step of demanding revisions. EU commissioners will discuss the letter response at a meeting in Strasbourg Tuesday, commission spokesman\u00a0Margaritis Schinastold reporters in Brussels.<\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhile recognizing the divergence of the respective evaluations, the Italian government will remain in a constructive and fair dialogue,\u201d Tria added. “The government is confident it can get investment and GDP growth moving again and that the recent rise in the government bond yields will be reabsorbed as the investors learn about all the details of the measures in the budget law.”<\/p>\n

He added that after 2019 the government doesn\u2019t intend to raise the structural budget deficit — adjusted to take account of the economic cycle and one-time items.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Conte signaled that Italy may not implement some of its most controversial spending plans until later next year, which could potentially lead to a narrower deficit. While the move is unlikely to appease the EU Commission, it was a sign that the government in Rome is looking at ways to reach a face-saving compromise.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can still reassess during the budget implementation whether to contain the target so we don\u2019t necessarily need to reach that 2.4 percent,” Conte said. “For sure, we won\u2019t exceed it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Italy Calls for Dialogue on `Necessary’ Breach of Deficit Rules By\u00a0Kevin Costelloe\u00a0and\u00a0Lorenzo Totaro (Bloomberg) —\u00a0 Italy\u2019s populist government promised it won\u2019t let its budget deficit widen further than currently planned and called for dialogue with the European Union to address their differences. In a letter to the European Commission published Monday, Finance Minister\u00a0Giovanni Tria\u00a0said the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18575,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18573\/revisions\/18575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}