EUR caught a bid as Italy relented (slightly) on its budget plans and agreed to bring its deficit for 2021 back to 2.0% of GDP, rather than -2.4% as it had threatened, according to a newspaper report. This would bring the country into line with EU rules requiring deficit reduction. EUR rallied somewhat on the news, but the fear of the continent’s third biggest economy and largest debtor continuing to rack up major deficits lingers.
I’ve updated this graph from yesterday with a) Italy’s planned deficits and b) France’s deficits. The forecasts for France are the Bloomberg consensus. Note that France has consistently run wider deficits than Italy ever since the global financial crisis of 2008. But it’s France, so it can get away with that. Italy has EUR 2.42bn in debt outstanding, while France has EUR 2.13bn, so not that much difference – although France is a bigger economy and bigger country than Italy (GDP $2.6tn and population 67.4mn, vs $1.9trn and 62.2mn, respectively).
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