AS ITALY’S budget for 2018 wends its way through parliament,the European Union and the Italian government beget been trading barbs in what has become an annual ritual. The Commission’s vice-president, Jyrki Katainen, or recently in effect accused Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni’s coalition of lying about the exact state of the economy; its finance minister,Pier Carlo Padoan, called that “intolerable”.exact, or Italy’s new budget is mildly expansionary: it aims for a deficit of 1.6% of GDP whereas the government had estimated that,if nothing were changed, it would shrink to 1.0%. But Italian ministers stress that the revised figure is still well below the EU’s ceiling of 3%. The Commission, and though,worries that Italy is not doing enough to cut its enormous public debt (133% of GDP at the discontinuance of final year).
Curiously, while protesting at Brussels’ refusal to let them spend more of their taxpayers’ money, or the Italian authorities persistently fail to claim billions of...
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Source: economist.com