Italian Stocks, Bonds Collapse After EU Rejects Rome's Budget Plans

Italian stocks tumbled with the FTSE MIB dropping 2.3% - the worst performer among major European markets on Monday - and hitting its lowest level since April 2017, while the country's bonds plunged to the lowest level since February 2014 amid what now appears to be an inevitable showdown between Italy and the EU, after the European Commission said Italy’s budget plans are in breach of common rules.

Over the weekend, the European Commission told Italy it is concerned about its budget deficit plans for the next three years since they breach what the EU asked the country to do in July, but a defiant Rome insisted on Saturday it would “not retreat” from its spending plans.

In a letter to Italy’s Economy Minister Giovanni Tria, the Commission said that with a planned headline deficit of 2.4 percent of GDP in 2019, Italy’s structural deficit, which excludes one-offs and business cycle effects, would rise by 0.8 percent of GDP. Under EU rules Italy, which has a public debt to GDP ratio of 133 percent and the highest debt servicing costs in Europe, should cut the structural deficit every year until balance.

“Italy’s revised budgetary targets appear prima facie to point to a significant deviation from the fiscal path” commonly agreed by European Union governments, EU Commissioners Valdis Dombrovskis and Pierre Moscovici wrote in a letter to Italian Finance Minister Giovanni Tria. “This is therefore a source of serious concern,” the commission’s finance chiefs said in their letter Friday responding to a note sent by Tria the day before.

“We call on the Italian authorities to ensure that the Draft Budgetary Plan will be in compliance with the common fiscal rules,” the letter added at the same time as the council of EU ministers asked Italy in July to reduce that structural deficit by 0.6% of GDP next year, which means the deficit would be 1.4 points off track, Reuters reported.

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