Brussels, 04/07/2002 (Agence Europe) - Commission spokesman Pedro Solbes repeated on Thursday that the commitment made by Italy for reaching budgetary balance by 2003 still held good. He rejected the assertion from Rome that European rules on securitisation of assets, a determining factor in the Italian budget, had been modified by Eurostat in October (see EUROPE yesterday p 9). In a letter addressed to Mr Solbes, the Italian Minister of Finance, Giulio Tremonti, criticised the decision taken on Wednesday by Eurostat to set up a table on categorising securitisation and affirming that the budgetary situation had been debated in Italy in October with experts from Eurostat, the Bank of Italy and the European Central Bank
"We have had a revised upwards budgetary forecast, allow us to say, this rise is unwelcome", he indicated. He also added that the Commission was awaiting results of the audit on Portuguese public finances to check whether the public deficit of this country exceeded 3% in 2001.