Several Italian members of the Social Democrat and Christian Democrat groups at the European Parliament belonging to parties now in the opposition at national level have called upon the government of Giuseppe Conte to avoid open confrontation with the Eurozone countries by agreeing to change the draft Italian budget for 2019, as per the unprecedented request made by the European Commission on Tuesday 23 October (see EUROPE 12123).
The Italian government has “deliberately opened a conflict with the EU institutions”, said Mercedes Bresso (S&D), adding that they “try to picture a fight with Europe against Italy for electoral purposes”. Her fellow countrymen, Roberto Gualtieri, criticised a “populist” draft budget that will be “paid by the next Italian generations”.
By acting in this way, the government is endangering any debate on Eurozone reform, the S&D group laments.
Salvatore Cicu (EPP) considers that Italy cannot afford, in the medium term, to service a government debt based on interest rates 2% higher than those on the sovereign debt of the other Eurozone countries.
“Bring order to the public accounts, abandon the citizens' income and gamble on a flat tax, infrastructure and effective measures to get young people into work”, said Massimiliano Salini.
Five Star Movement member Marco Valli justified the actions of the Conte government in the columns of the newspaper Le Soir. The draft Italian budget sends out a “clear message of moving away from the austerity policies” that cut spending, reduced salaries and liberalised the employment market, he said (our translation). “Ours is a Keynsian solution”, he said, referring to structural reforms such as an 'anti-corruption' law and reducing red tape, together with a temporary increase in public spending via public investment in particular, in order to boost growth. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion and Lucas Tripoteau)