Meloni says 'not convinced' by EU stability pact reform

(ANSA) - ROME, JUN 9 - Premier Giorgia Meloni said on Friday that she is "not convinced" by the proposal from the European Commission on reform of the Stability and Growth Pact establishing the fiscal rules for EU member states.
    Meloni also said she would "say what I think about the European Stability Mechanism (ESM)" EU bailout fund "when I am told what the framework is".
    The ESM is "one part of a set of tools that must be discussed as a whole," Meloni told veteran journalist Bruno Vespa at the forum 'Italy to Come' in Masseria Li Reni.
    "It doesn't make sense to ratify its reform if you don't know what the new Stability and Growth Pact provides for," she added.
    Italy is the only EU member state not to have approved the reform of the ESM, arguing that it could also have purposes other than the ones for which it was born, being used to boost investment and growth, for instance.
    "The ESM is a stigma that now risks holding up resources at a time when we are all looking for them: then it would not be used by anyone," Meloni said.
    "I hope this issue can be addressed pragmatically and not as in Italy, in an ideological way.
    "Ratifying the reform without understanding the ensuing mechanism would be stupid," she argued.
    In joint statements to reporters after a meeting with the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Rome on Thursday Meloni said that the two leaders were calling for a "new Stability Pact that looks very much at supporting growth".
    "European competitiveness needs to be supported by a vision and appropriate rules, it is important" that there be "flexible fiscal rules", she said.
    Italy and Germany agree that the old rules drawn up at the end of the 1990s to enforce the deficit and debt limits established by the Maastricht Treaty are "outdated" and that "new rules must be sought" to support growth, reiterated Meloni. (ANSA).