You can’t get it all: Italy’s public finances

The Italian government will present its public finance projections by 10 April. Lorenzo Codogno writes that fiscal policy is expected to be strongly expansionary in 2016, but courtesy of flexibility clauses, the government will likely avoid entering into the EU’s so called ‘Excessive Deficit Procedure’ in May. He argues however that a fiscal problem looms large in 2017, while Italy’s reduction of its debt-to-GDP ratio remains fragile and subject to external shocks.