Padoan and Moscovici: “Italy-EU relations improved.” Fitch freezes Italian growth – The Republic

MILAN – Signs of détente in the relationship between Italy and the EU Commission, but on accounts tricolor hanging new concerns regarding the slowdown in the recovery. To send the former are “economic items” of the two parties, the Minister Pier Carlo Padoan and the Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Pierre Moscovici; to cool the enthusiasm on growth is rather the rating agency Fitch, which has cut the estimate on Italy’s GDP to + 1% for 2016 (1.3%) and 1.3% (+1, 5% the previous year), for reasons “mainly” linked to the worsening external economic conditions.

Fitch estimates. the update of the Global economic Outlook of the rating agency ranks below forecasts government (currently at 1.6%, although with the Def update expects a correction) and also well below the forecast of the EU Commission for a + 1.4% in 2016. Fitch cut for another 2 from , 1% to 1.7% on the estimated growth for the top 20 economies of the world, stressing, however, that we are on the eve of a new global recession. Also slowing the Eurozone, with growth now expected to + 1.5% in the current year and 1.6% next, from + 1.7% inizale of both.

experts annotate the continuing weakness of investment in Italy, where growth “will mainly rely on private consumption” and “the increasingly weak performance of exports will remain the main obstacle”. According to the rating agency, the Italian budgetary policy – based on the 2016 Stability Law – will be “slightly expansive” but with the possibility of higher spending due to the flexibility margins asked on spending for migrants who may have an effect positive. The labor market, finally, “is slowly improving” but unemployment will fall “only gradually” due to the expansion of the labor force.

The Italy-Europe game. Great part of the Italian economic destiny, therefore, binds to felssibilità EU. In this sense, both Moscovici that Padoan stressed the progress, after the recent puns, which was followed by the visit of the President of the Commission, Jean Claude Juncker, in the Italian capital. “I am in permanent contact with Padoan, there is a degree of flexibility that Italy can qualify, there are rules to follow, we seek an agreement in an active way, Juncker’s visit to Rome led to a new climate but one thing is the climate is different and sometimes the substance is different, “said Moscovici from the Eurogroup meeting in Brussels.

a summit which was also attended by Padoan, who added: “The climate has improved, we work together with the EU.” On the negotiating table, as is known, there is the Italian request to use the flexibility that the EU rules contemplate to loosen the close of the public accounts and try to support the fragile recovery, as well as discounting the costs to cope with the clause migrants. Padoan said that “any letter” by the Commission, which could be decided tomorrow with recipient countries at risk of non-compliance with the medium-term objectives, “is part of the standard procedure: there is nothing new and we are not worried. ” As for relations with the Commission, the weather according to the minister “has definitely improved but it was good before, now there are many concrete things on the table” and in particular “I think that there is recognition that the debt has stabilized and will start to go down, and that there are margins of adjustment that should be harnessed. “

Topics:

public accounts

deficit

Starring:

pier carlo Padoan

pierre Moscovici