11/12/2018 Italian government says its budget will prevent 'scenes like we've seen in Paris' - The Local
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Italian government says its budget will prevent 'scenes like we've seen in Paris'
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte (C) with his deputies Luigi Di Maio (L) and Matteo Salvini (R). Photo: Filippo Monteforte/AFP
AFP/The Local [email protected] @thelocalitaly
11 December 2018 17:08 CET+01:00
France’s “yellow“yel low vest”ves t” pprotestsrotes t have given the Italian government new ammunition in their budget battle with Brussels, as ministers say higher ppublicublic sspendingpen ding is needed to prevent ssocialocial uunrest.nrest https://www.thelocal.it/20181211/italian-government-says-its-budget-will-prevent-scenes-like-paris-protests 1/9 11/12/2018 Italian government says its budget will prevent 'scenes like we've seen in Paris' - The Local Italian Deputy Prime Minister LuigiL Di Maio said on Tuesday that "there will be a French problem" on top of an Italian one if France’s de cit breaches EU rules after Emmanuel Macron unveiled measures to quell protests.
"France will have to increase its de cit and there will be a problem for France, if the rules are the same for everyone," said Di Maio, whose own government’ss big-spending budget is facing EU disciplinardisciplinaryy measurmeasures.es.
And speaking at his rally in Rome on Saturday,, Co-Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said the Italian gogovernment was taking a “very different path” to Paris.
“Do people in Italy want scenes like we've seen in Paris? ... No. I want to prevent this,” he said.
'Yellow vest' protesters in Paris. Photo: AFP
France’s “yellow“y ellow vvest”est” prprotestersotesters haveha taken aim at French President Emmanuel Macron’s liberalal economic policies, and hahave so far forced the French government to pay for an increaseease in the minimum wage - a potentially costly measure - as well as cancel a planned rise in taxes on petrol and diesel.
Italian ministers seized on the anti-government demonstrations rocking Paris as further justi cation for their ‘people’s budget’, which proposes to increaseease public spending in de ance of austerity measurmeasureses being followed acracross Europe – including Italy, for now.
Italy's budget for 2019 was the rst in history to be rejected by Brussels for breakingeaking spending rules, and the populist gogovernment of Di Maio's Five Star Movement and Matteo Salvini's far-right League is now trying to come up with another draft.
Brussels has insisted it will sanction Italy if its budget is not adjusted to meet European Union spending rules, focusing on the proposed de cit level of 2.4 percent.
READ ALSO: 'Budget of change': Italy announces plans to end austerity
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, travellingtr to Brussels this week, is expected to argue that his government’s budget goes beyond numbers and is the only defence against the unrest and social revolt taking place across Europe, La Stampa writes.
The country “can’t concentrate only on nancial stability, we also need to look at social stability,” the premier was cited as saying. “The austerity-oriented recipes of the past few years have failed.”
The EU rules on public spending arear "binding for everybody, that is clear," said senior German MEP Manfred Weber, when asked by reporters about France's new expenditure.
But he added that "what we should not do as the European Union is intervene inene in domestic policies.policies.”
READ ALSO: EU slams Italy's 'unprecedented' breaking of budget rules
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