This morning the Council of Ministers gave the official go-ahead for the Economic and Financial Document (Def), which will be sent to Parliament today. The National Reform Plan has also been approved. The package, according to the new European accounts, must be sent to Brussels by 30 April, after the parliamentary procedure.
The Government had already announced the revision of the main macro indicators for 2013, forecasting a worsening of the GDP for this year, which will settle at -1,3%, to then return positive next year (+1,3%) . And then again: +1,3% in 2015, +1,5% in 2016 and +1,4% in 2017. Estimates on the 2013 deficit/GDP rise from 2,4 to 2,9%, above all to allow the payment of public administration debts. The figure (which should then settle at 1,8% next year) remains in any case below the 3% threshold envisaged by the Maastricht Treaty, which should allow the closure of the European infringement procedure for excessive deficits against the our country. As for the debt/GDP ratio, it should settle at around 130,4% this year and 129% in 2014. Furthermore, according to the Executive, in 2014 the primary surplus will be equal to around 4 per cent of GDP, among the highest in the Eurozone, and will remain between about 5 and 6% in the following years.
“In matters of public finances, credibility is bought at a high price and can be quickly lost – said Prime Minister Mario Monti as he presented the document -. The Def confirms that after the crisis of November 2011 the fiscal consolidation has taken place. We have brought the deficit back below 3% and achieved the objective of a balanced budget in structural terms, set by the previous government. We hope that in May Italy will leave the list of countries with public finance problems and enter the list of virtuous countries”.
The Professor then underlined that, despite "many people are calling for new injections of public money to deal with the crisis", in the Executive's opinion "we need to keep our guard up over the public accounts also in the coming years", because "only if the 'Italy will stay out of the excessive deficit procedure and will reduce its debt and will be able to take the road to recovery, otherwise the economy would give breathing space for some time, but with extremely serious throwback consequences”.
Monti then claimed the effectiveness of the reforms adopted by his government, arguing that without these measures “the country would have remained in the shallows of zero growth or decline for many years to come. The reforms implemented will instead guarantee a cumulative increase in GDP of 3,9% between now and 2020 and up to 6,9% in the long term. We count that Italy will be able to do even better than the estimates contained in the Def, which are prudential, as the forecasts of the OECD and the IMF tell us. The price of wrong choices in economic policy manifests itself after a certain time and the benefits of right choices also manifest themselves after a certain time”.
