The European Commission welcomed it the privatization plan announced by Italy, which should be able to reduce the "very high" public debt compared to GDP. This was reported by the spokesman of the commissioner for economic affairs Olli Rehn, Simon O'Connor, specifying that "when we have the details we will examine them and we will take these announcements into consideration in our winter economic forecasts, towards February".
In any case, the privatizations are one-off interventions, therefore "the need for structural measures remains - continued O'Connor -, based on our opinion published last week, which remains valid".
Rehn therefore expects to be able to examine the details of the spending review announced by the Letta government: “We know that the Executive has started the procedure and we are waiting for more details before making a decision – concluded O'Connor -. We will also take this aspect into account in view of the winter forecasts”.
Yesterday the commissioner had clarified that Italy will be able to activate the clause for productive investments (which makes it possible not to calculate investments in works co-financed by the European Union in the deficit) if the spending review or other measures (such as privatizations) will produce results on the public debt side. Last week the EU Commission instead denied this possibility to our country, judging the action taken so far to reduce the debt insufficient.
