The European Commission assured Italy that its additional spending amid the coronavirus outbreak will not be counted when assessing the country's compliance with the European Union's budget rules.
"As regards the announced package of support measures, any one-off budgetary spending, incurred in relation to the response to the outbreak, would be excluded by definition from the computation of the structural balance and not taken into account when assessing compliance with the required fiscal effort under the existing rules," the Commission's Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis and Economics Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni told Rome in a letter published by the Italian Economy Ministry on Saturday.
Earlier this week, the Italian government announced it will allocate €7.5 billion for fighting the coronavirus. According to the latest information, Italy is the most affected country in Europe with 4,636 confirmed cases and 197 deaths from COVID-19. On a global level, only China, South Korea and Iran have reported more cases.
