Italy will use extra leeway from the EU to spend billions of euros on energy and defense, Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti told members of the country’s parliament on Wednesday.
Rome is set to boost its expenditure on green energy and defense over the coming three years, said Giorgetti following a relaxation of rules from Brussels, which allows the additional spending to be exempted from the EU’s strict spending targets and waived from Rome’s deficit figures.
Italy is poised to issue a formal request to the European Commission — laying out the investments it intends to undertake with the extra flexibility — by a mid-August deadline.
Giorgetti said Italy will request to spend an additional 0.6 percent of gross domestic product on green energy investments and 0.9 percent on defense — the full amount that is envisaged under the new fiscal guidelines.
