29/08/2006 (Agence Europe) - While the Italian Council of Ministers is to establish, on 31 August, the broad lines for the next finance law, the minister for European Affairs, Emma Bonino, has voiced opposition to postponing from 2007 to 2008 bringing the Italian budgetary deficit to below the 3% mark imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact. It would be a mistake to “put off the structural reforms that the country needs. Other governments have already chosen to put off reform when the economic situation is good, and look what has happened”, Ms Bonino said, sounding a note of caution: “We would lose credibility in Brussels. We submitted the DPEF (document for economic and financial programming) just two months ago. And now, look what we are doing”. Italian Finance Minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa is expected to state the Italian government's intentions during the Informal Ecofin Council on 8 and 9 September in Helsinki before the formal discussion no doubt at the Ecofin Council on 10 October. (See EUROPE 9230 on the subject of presentation of the DPEF at the last Eurogroup meeting).