Italy is one of the seven euro area countries whose budget forecast for 2015 is "at risk of non-compliance" with EU rules. The other six are Belgium, Spain, France, Malta, Austria and Portugal. The warning was issued by the European Commission in Brussels, which "will evaluate the situation at the beginning of March 2015", following the approval of the budget and the announced reforms.
In the assessment of the 2015 budget planning documents, Italy is acknowledged to have made "some progress" on fiscal consolidation at a structural level, but it is also asked to make more. At the beginning of March 2015, the Commission will examine Italy's position regarding its obligations under the Stability and Growth Pact, in the light of the approval of the budget law and the specification of the structural reform plan announced by the authorities. in Minister Padoan's letter of 21 November”.
The seven states, as well as Estonia, Latvia, Slovenia and Finland, whose planning documents were found to be "substantially compliant", are asked to "take the necessary measures within the national budgetary procedure to ensure that the budget 2015 complies with the agreement". The other five Euroland countries (Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Slovakia) instead provided draft budget plans deemed "compliant with the pact".
Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan intervened polemically on Brussels' decision, which in any case reserves the right to wait until March: "I am increasingly amazed that in the debates with foreign interlocutors Italy is seen as a country with a long list of announcements of structural reforms and not much else. I dispute it: they are not just announcements but great progress has been made on structural reforms ”.
"After three years of recession, next year will be one of positive growth," Padoan also said during a conference in the House. “Italy is one of the countries in Europe that is still doing worse than the others, at least looking at the numbers. You have not yet definitively emerged from a three-year recession, but we believe that next year will be one of positive growth. And that the EU commission will recognize the efforts on the reform front and that Italy is a country that has the possibility of setting in motion a virtuous mechanism and changing pace”.
Even before Padoan, the president of the Commission Jean Claude Juncker himself had intervened on the issue, interviewed by some European newspapers including Repubblica: “I made the choice not to sanction Italy and France. It would have been easy to punish countries that do not comply with the rules of the pact: it was enough to apply the established procedures. But I chose to let them speak and listen. Ours, however, will be an in-depth and not at all complacent analysis – adds he-he. Some countries will require additional efforts. But it is one thing to clearly state how and why the commitments of the pact are not respected. Another is to punish with sanctions and procedures. After all, we have already received letters from Italy, France and Belgium with precise and well-substantiated commitments”.
