EU: ‘Positive assessment of safeguard clause for Italy, no risk’
The dossier now goes to the Council, which will have one month to give its final approval. Only then can the clause be officially activated for Italia
“We received a request for activation from Italia on 11 September, and our assessment concluded that, in Italia’s case, the activation of the clause does not in fact jeopardise fiscal sustainability in the medium term. Our assessment is positive.” This was stated by a spokesperson for the European Commission during the daily press briefing regarding Italia’s request to activate the National Exception Clause (NEC) in relation to public accounts for defence and energy expenditure. “The dossier now passes to the Council, which will have one month to give its final approval; only then can the clause be officially activated for Italia,” he added.
This type of flexibility should not be confused with Italy’s additional request for flexibility regarding the use of extraordinary VAT revenue for measures to tackle high energy prices, on which Brussels has yet to give its opinion.
