European affairs minister Mr Rocco Buttiglione has rejected European Commission president Mr Romano Prodi's comments that the EU's stability and growth pact is not to be changed.
In comments reported in La Stampanewspaper, Mr Buttiglione was replying to Mr Prodi's interview yesterday in which Mr Prodi said member states have no concrete plans to change the stability pact.
"The stability pact was not made by the commission and changing it will not be decided by the commission," Mr Buttiglione said.
"If the pact had worked well for stability, it has worked less well as far as growth. It is true there has been little inflation. All the same we have delayed development and recovery," he said.
"It is not only Italy that has economic difficulties but all of Europe that sees a negative economic cycle and a delayed recovery. All together, as Europeans, we ought to make an economic policy that allows for the development that we need," he said.
In another interview in La Stampa, Sanpaolo IMI chairman Mr Rainer Masera said the pact's 3 per cent deficit maximum should exclude infrastructure spending for between 1 to 2 per cent over the next two years.
AFP