Italy wants new Pact to privilege investment in Italy

Italy wants the EU's reformed Stability and Growth Pact to privilege investments for growth rather than budget restrictions, Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said Monday, Azernews reports, citing ANSA.

"This is the Italian negotiating position on which we stand: we are not making an issue of debt or lack of debt reduction, but we want investment to be treated preferentially and better than current expenditure.," the rightwing League party heavyweight told the annual Rimini Meeting For Friendship Among Peoples staged by the influential lay catholic group Communion and Liberation (CL).

"We cannot at a time when we are still in an exceptional situation go back to rules that ignore the need to accompany and help families and businesses in the transformation we are experiencing.

"I hope that in Europe when we decide on the new rules in September, they will be taken into account." He added that he hoped that the Stability and Growth Pact's general clause, on fiscal discipline, which has not been applied since the COVID pandemic, would come into force again next January.