Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini says Italy may have to unilaterally breach the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact if Brussels refuses to suspend the rules. The government is weighing-up a freeze on energy bills to protect households and businesses from soaring costs.
Deputy Premier and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini escalated Italy’s confrontation with the European Union on Tuesday, warning that Rome could act alone to breach the bloc’s fiscal rules if Brussels fails to respond to the economic fallout from the Iran war.
Speaking to RTL radio, Salvini said the situation demanded urgent flexibility. “The EU calls on us to be rigorous, but the situation is delicate,” he said. “Either Brussels realises this or we’ll sound the alarm.”
His comments follow Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s address to parliament last week in which she called for a possible temporary suspension of the Stability and Growth Pact, not as a waiver for individual member states, but as a general measure.
‘I’d like to see if anyone opens an infringement procedure’
Salvini went further than Meloni in his language, signalling a willingness to proceed without European cover if necessary. “If we can all waive the Stability Pact together, fine,” he said. “Otherwise we’ll be forced to proceed alone and I’d like to see if anyone opens an infringement procedure if we dare help Italian businesses and families struggling with the rising cost of energy.”
The threat carries real stakes. Before the Iran war broke out, Italy had been on course to bring its deficit-to-GDP ratio below the 3% threshold this year, a requirement for exiting an existing EU infringement procedure. That progress is now in jeopardy as energy costs strain public finances.
EU Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis has firmly rebuffed Rome’s push, saying the conditions for suspending the pact are not currently met. “To suspend the pact, there must be a serious economic crisis in the eurozone or the EU as a whole, and we are not in that situation,” he stated during a European Parliament hearing earlier this month.
Energy bill freeze on the table
On the domestic front, Salvini said the government was actively considering a freeze on energy bills to cushion the blow for Italian consumers. “The economic situation risks becoming increasingly complicated for millions of Italians,” he warned.
“I am thinking about the solutions we are considering, including the freezing of the energy bills for electricity and gas at the pre-Iran-war level for the whole of 2026. I was discussing it with Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti,” he said.
Giorgetti himself has already raised the spectre of recession, warning that it “will arrive” if the energy crisis triggered by the war in Iran does not abate. The Economy Minister has been among those pressing Brussels most forcefully for fiscal breathing room.
