Grey budget like govt - Salvini (3)

(ANSA) - Rome, October 17 - Anti-euro, anti-immigrant Northern League (LN) leader Matteo Salvini on Tuesday described the 20-billion-euro 2018 budget approved by the government Monday as "a grey budget from a grey government".
    He said the package, which features tax breaks for hiring young people and the renewal after 10 years of public-sector contracts, "helped big firms as usual, and does not enter into the merits of real problems".
    "It didn't touch the (2011) Fornero law (upping the pension age to 67), it didn't touch (personal income tax) IRPEF, it's the grey budget of a grey government," Salvini told Radio Cusano.
    Other measures in the budget, which crucially averted a scheduled big VAT hike, include incentives for creating roof gardens in urban areas and new hirings of university researchers.
    A series of other taxes and levies originally expected were also averted.
    Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said Tuesday an IRPEF hike may well come with the next government, if the centre left stays in power.