The war in the Middle East is affecting the very flesh of Italy's public finances. Eurostat certifies that Italy has failed to achieve its goal of returning the deficit to GDP below 3% (the recorded figure was 3.1%), and the cascading effects are impacting the 2026 Public Finance Document, approved by the Council of Ministers.
In fact, Italy does not meet the parameters of the Stability Pact and is not exempted from the infringement procedure, which will provide less room for maneuver and fewer resources to spend in the next budget law , the last of the legislature.
Today the government approved the DFP (Public Finance Document): "We have adjusted GDP for 2026-27, which will drop from 0.7% to 0.6% this year, from 0.8% to 0.6% in 2027, and from 0.9% to 0.8% in 2028," explained Minister Giorgetti.
The government's failure to comply with the Stability Pact's parameters, which prevent Italy from exiting the European excessive deficit procedure, doesn't seem to be keeping them awake at night. "I was very interested until February 28, 2026," the date of the US and Israeli attack on Iran, but "after that date, I was relatively less interested," Giorgetti emphasizes. He relies on a historic quote from the late soccer coach Vujadin Boskov to explain the situation: "A penalty is when the referee blows the whistle. The referee has called the penalty; you can agree or disagree, but those are the rules of the game."
The real obsession on Via XX Settembre is the energy shock caused by the conflict. Giorgetti emphasizes that he hasn't asked the EU for exemptions from the Stability Pact, "but to be ready and flexible to respond to situations. Not lax, but flexible," he specifies. "Because rigidity in a completely changed world is unacceptable." In this sense, his idea is to give equal attention to both exemptions for defense spending and those to address the rising prices of gas, electricity, and fuel . The current situation is so worrying that "it deserves to be examined in depth very soon, with political decisions," says Giorgetti.
Giorgia Meloni, on the other hand, takes issue with the Superbonus : "It's infuriating that we would still have had a deficit below 3% if, even in 2025, the state coffers hadn't been burdened by the billions of euros spent on the Superbonus. The disastrous measure by the left-wing Conte II government currently prevents Italy from exiting the infringement procedure, depriving the government of spending margins for public healthcare, education, and support for low-income earners," the Prime Minister wrote on social media.
However, the Prime Minister emphasizes, "Regarding deficit reduction, we achieved a result considered unattainable by many. In 2022, when the current government took office, we had a deficit-to-GDP ratio of 8.1%; today we have brought it to 3.1%. This figure is not only 5 percentage points lower than when we took office, but also better than the government's own forecasts, which capped at 3.3% for 2025. We remain disappointed," she concludes, "that we narrowly missed the 3% threshold, which would have allowed us to exit the European infringement procedure a year early, which would have meant greater spending capacity for the state."
(Unioneonline)