(Bloomberg) -- Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte said he proposed a deficit target at 2.04 percent of output for next year to the European Commission, yielding significant ground in a standoff on the populist government’s spending plans.
Conte told reporters after meeting commission head Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels that the government had found resources which allowed it to lower the 2019 deficit from an initial 2.4 percent that had been rejected as breaching European Union rules. He said the populist coalition will maintain its main promises to voters including an income for the poor and a pension reform.
To contact the reporter on this story: John Follain in Rome at jfollain2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Alessandra Migliaccio, Chiara Albanese
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