ROME, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- Italy has lowered the deficit spending target in its draft 2019 budget in an effort to avoid EU infraction procedure, from 2.4 percent to 2.04 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced on Twitter late on Wednesday.
"We have brought forward our proposal to Brussels: the deficit to GDP ratio at 2.04 (percent)," Conte tweeted. "We are not betraying the trust of the Italian people and we respect the commitments we made...negotiations with the EU (European Union) are ongoing."
Conte specified in televised statements in Brussels after meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker that two key campaign promises made by his rightwing-populist government -- namely, the introduction of a basic income for the poor and the unemployed and a rollback of an unpopular 2011 pension reform -- "are off limits" and that the ruling majority "is united" behind the revised budget deficit figure.
The European Commission had rejected Italy's previous draft budget, which was announced in October, arguing it failed to reduce public debt and was based on unrealistic growth assumptions.
Other critics of the government's previous spending plan included Italy's Parliamentary Budget Office, Italian national statistics institute ISTAT, the Italian Audit Court, the Bank of Italy, Italy's INPS social security and pensions agency, Confindustria industrialists association, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Fitch and Standard & Poor's ratings agencies.
