The European Commission
will announce its judgement on Italy's 2015 budget bill after
meeting of commissioners on Monday, ANSA sources said Tuesday.
The sources said the commission's various department chiefs
will work on the final details of their assessments of the
budgets of Italy and other EU States this weekend.
The European Commission last month gave provisional
backing to the budget, after Premier Matteo Renzi agreed to
increase the planned cut in the structural deficit from 0.1% of
GDP to 0.3%.
But the EC also warned that the budget plan, which
features 18 billion euros in tax cuts in a bid to boost the
recession-battered economy, faced more tests.
The Italian Lower House's budget committee on Tuesday
approved government plans to cut Italy's structural deficit by
0.3% of GDP in 2015 in a bid to win European Commission
approval.
The committee also approved a reverse charge of the
value-added tax (VAT) on large retailers, worth about 728
million euros for government coffers in the 2015 budget.
That money has been earmarked for deficit reduction and
must be approved by the EC.
Failing that, the budget bill allows a new excise tax on
gasoline and diesel.
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