(ANSA) - Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti on Thursday played down the importance of a European Commission forecast putting Italy's budget deficit in 2006 at well over the agreed target.
Tremonti said the comments in the accompanying EC report were largely positive and that, despite warnings about certain aspects of the 2006 budget, the overall framework of the bill was judged solid.
"It's not a problem of numbers but of what types of controls we can set up in the big spending areas to respect the objectives," he said.
In its autumn round of economic forecasts for the 25 EU members, the Commission predicted Italy's deficit would be 4.2% next year, compared to the announced objective of 3.8%.
Italy was one of five EU countries expected by the EC to overshoot the 3% limit for deficits in 2005, 2006 and 2007. The others were France, Germany, Portugal and Greece. Last July the EU called on Italy to bring its deficit back under the 3% ceiling by 2007. As a halfway stage on the way to achieving this, a 2006 objective of 3.8% was set.
Tremonti ruled out special budget measures to reduce the national debt in coming years. "We'll have to reread the part (of the EC report) on debt but we don't plan any extraordinary measures."
"The comments on the economy are good," he continued, saying that GDP was growing sufficiently fast as 2005 drew to a close and solid growth was expected next year. "It's easier to make public accounts go right if the economy is going well," he added.
Italy's economy grew 0.3% in the third quarter, after a 0.7% rise in the second. The positive figures follow two
quarters of negative growth. The EC put Italy's economic growth this year at 0.2%, rising to 1.5% in 2006 and 1.4% in 2007. This was below the average growth forecast in the 12 euro zone countries: 1.3% in 2005, 1.9% in 2006 and 2.1% in 2007. Earlier in the day, European Commissioner for Monetary Affairs Joaquin Almunia, said the deficit forecast should not be taken automatically as a condemnation of the Italian government's budget bill.
That bill is now moving through parliament and must be approved by the end of the year.
"These are forecasts, they're not an early announcement of our judgment on Italy," Almunia said, referring to the EC's custom of commenting on national budget legislation in January each year.
Almunia acknowledged that the EC's forecasts only took into account some of the measures included in the
government's budget bill, adding that further measures had been adopted since the forecasts were made.
He said he would meet Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti in Brussels later this year to clarify details of the budget measures designed to cut spending.
"Then I'll have a better basis on which to formulate a judgment next January," he said.
