Italy has failed to bring its budget deficit below the EU’s 3% threshold. This leaves the country trapped in an excessive-deficit infringement procedure and prompting a furious response from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. She squarely blames the Superbonus home improvement scheme inherited from her predecessor.
Italy’s deficit-to-GDP ratio for 2025 came in at 3.1%, according to figures published Wednesday by both European and Italian statistics agencies. This dashes hopes that the country would finally emerge from the EU’s excessive-deficit procedure this year.
Meloni blames Conte’s “disastrous” Superbonus
Meloni made no effort to conceal her frustration. “It’s infuriating,” she wrote on social media. She argued that Italy “would still have had a deficit below 3% if, even in 2025, the state coffers hadn’t been burdened by the billions of euros spent on the Superbonus.”
The Superbonus was a flagship policy of the Conte II government, a centre-left administration, which offered homeowners generous tax credits of up to 110% for energy efficiency improvements and seismic upgrades. Though popular with recipients, it proved vastly more expensive than projected, with its deferred costs continuing to weigh on Italy’s public finances years after it was wound down.
“The disastrous measure by the left-wing Conte II government, for now, prevents Italy from exiting the infringement procedure, cutting off the government’s spending margin for public healthcare, education, and support for low-income earners,” Meloni said.
The centre-left opposition, however, pushed back, pointing out that Meloni’s own government did not abolish the Superbonus when it came to power but continued to apply it.
Growth forecasts cut and deficit path revised
The gloomy deficit news arrived alongside a broader set of downward revisions from Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti. He presented the government’s 2026 Public Finance Document (DFP), Italy’s medium-term economic blueprint, on Wednesday.
Giorgetti confirmed that Italy’s GDP growth forecast for 2025 has been cut to just 0.6%, with the same modest figure projected for 2027. The forecast for 2028 has also been trimmed, from 0.9% to 0.8%. The minister cited the conflict involving Iran among the factors weighing on the economic outlook.
On the deficit path, Giorgetti offered a cautious reassurance. Whilst the figures are worse than previously projected, the government still expects to dip below the critical 3% threshold in 2026. The deficit is now forecast at 2.9% for 2026, up from the earlier estimate of 2.8%, before falling to 2.8% in 2027 and 2.5% in 2028.
The minister was candid about the uncertainty surrounding even those revised figures. “The natural premise is that we’re not living in normal circumstances, but in totally exceptional circumstances,” he told reporters, “and therefore the forecasts contained in the document are inevitably already questionable and, alas, require further updates in the coming weeks.”
Giorgetti reaches for football analogy
In a moment that will have raised eyebrows in Brussels and raised smiles in Italian football circles, Giorgetti reached for an unlikely authority to frame Italy’s predicament: the late Yugoslav football coach Vujadin Boškov, famed for his deadpan aphorisms about the game.
“As Boškov said, a penalty is when the referee blows the whistle,” Giorgetti said. “So the referee awarded the penalty; you can agree or disagree, but these are the rules of the game.”
The minister added that the question of whether Italy would exit the excessive-deficit procedure had been a priority for him until 28 February 2026, but considerably less so after that date, once the outcome became clear.
He also took a pointed swipe at domestic critics who, in his view, appeared to relish the bad news. “I see some comments, I understand that in this country there are even sports leaders who are celebrating the elimination of the national team from the World Cup, so it’s also clear that there are many who are celebrating because a referee’s decision of this kind goes against the national interest. We are a country like this. Elsewhere it doesn’t normally happen.”
