Latest data released by Istat - 3 October 2018
- Prior 3.5%; revised to 3.4%
The January to June public deficit is seen at 1.9%. That's a much healthier reading than the one seen from the same period in 2017: 3.0%. Italy's previous government promised Brussels to keep the deficit this year at 1.6% so they're definitely slowly working their way towards it at least.
But as mentioned, deficit targets are at the end of the day just targets. Same goes for the current 2.4% for 2019. If the government's fiscal plans don't match that, we'll see the readings here blow up next year and there will be questions/worries on Italy's debt still to come.
