The government will keep its
expensive campaign promises to Italians despite market jitters
about Italy breaching EU budget parameters, Interior Minister
Matteo Salvini said Monday.
"Market doubts? We'll be understood by the facts. I'm amazed
at the fact that they don't appreciate the fact that we're going
to keep the promised made in the electoral campaign," he said.
"In the past the (centre-left Democratic Party) PD did what
Europe said and the Italians are not better off and there's more
debt.
I want to make useful spending, I hope it is within the
European canons".
The government's flagship policies, a basic income, 'flat'
tax and pension reform, have been costed as totalling some
80-100 billion euros, enough to bust the budget.
Salvini's Euroskeptic League party has said Italy will break
the EU's key 3% deficit-to-GDP limit in its 2019 budget, but
Economy Minister Giovanni Tria, an unelected technocrat, says
the budget deficit will stick to 1-2% of GDP.
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