Italy gets off without deficit warning

ITALY joined France and Germany in successfully breaching the 3% budget deficit limit without getting an early warning from Eurozone ministers yesterday.

The issue was postponed in June to allow the Italians come up with a plan of how to reduce the deficit, believed to be running at 3.2% of GDP.

Following the forced resignation at the weekend of Finance Minister Guilio Tremonti, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi attended the meeting of the 12 eurozone countries in Brussels and presented a package of measures to shave €7.5 billion off the budget in 2004.