No corrective budget says Conte

(ANSA) - Rome, February 21 - Premier Giuseppe Conte on Thursday ruled out speculation that the government may have to pass an additional corrective budget to put the public finances in order.
    "We do not consider a corrective budget to be necessary," Conte told a question time session in the Senate.
    "We just have to continue with the rational, effective use of the funds that have already been allocated.
    "Furthermore, we have already adopted prudential measures that shelter us from corrective interventions.
    "The budget law contains account monitoring measures and a mechanism to set aside up to two billion euros to guarantee the public finance targets".
    He said he was confident his government's policies would help turn around the economy after it dipped into recession in the second half of 2018. "The fundamentals of our economy remain solid.
    "We are speeding up the implementation and application of the various measures approved over the last few months, so that they can have effect as soon as possible.
    "These effects will contribute to progressive growth, above all in the second half of the year.
    "We don't intend to let hypotheses or forecasts dictate the agenda".
    The premier added that the government will stop budget 'safeguard clauses', which will see value-added tax increase unless alternative sources of financial coverage can be found, from kicking in. "The government is determined to defuse the safeguard clauses dor VAT for 2020 and 2021, as we did for 2019," Conte said.