ECB praises Italy on deficit, demands action on debt -update

(ANSA) - Rome, June 12 - The European Central Bank (ECB) praised Italy's progress on reducing its budget deficit in its monthly bulletin on Thursday and called for it to now work harder on bringing down its massive national debt of over two trillion euros. The bulletin said Italy had "achieved a sustainable correction" of its excessive deficit in recent years, along with Finland, Germany and Latvia. But it added that Italy should prioritise "putting the large debt-to-GDP ratio on a stable downward path".