Premier Giuseppe Conte reiterated on Thursday that he thinks the EU's budget rules should be overhauled to make them fairer ahead of the European Union summit in Brussels. The premier also stressed, however, that Italy will respect the existing rules until they are changed, the same line he expressed in a letter he sent to the EU regarding the possible opening of an infringement procedure over failure to comply with the debt rule.
"If we are part of an integrated system, we must face global challenges but, within the EU, the rules must be the same for everyone," Conte said.
"I want to compete, but on an equal footing".
In the letter Conte said it was not fair that some countries were able to offer companies extremely generous tax regimes and that policies of some States generated big trade and budget surpluses instead of balancing this out with investment in innovation, welfare and sustainability.
Conte said that the Italian government would like to see someone willing to overhaul the EU's budget rules be the new president of the European Commission. "Our ideal candidate for the European Commission is someone prepared to change the rules," Conte said.
But Conte also acknowledged that "the rules, until they change them, are these", referring to EU budget and debt limits.
He said Italy's letter to the European Commission seeking to avert an infringement procedure for breaking the debt rule "contains a clear political message: it's no use saying we won't respect the rules so don't apply them, until they are changed they are these ones". Conte was answering a question on Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici's earlier assertion that Italy had to respect the rules that were "intelligent and favour growth". The premier said that Italy's public finances are in better shape than forecasts of the European Commission and the Italian government itself would suggest. "Thanks to the measures adopted to improve fiscal faithfulness, (tax) revenues are better than expected," he said, adding that expenditure was lower than forecast. He said Italy's deficit-to-GDP ratio for this year will be 2.1%, and not the 2.5% forecast by the Commission.
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