Conte sets budget as priority for new govt

(ANSA) - Rome, August 29 - Premier-designate Giuseppe Conte on Thursday set the 2020 budget as a priority for a new government formed by the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) and the centre-left Democratic Party (PD).
    "This is a delicate phase for the country and the budget is a priority," he said after receiving a government formation mandate from President Sergio Mattarella.
    Conte said "I will set to work immediately for a budget that will combat the VAT hike, safeguard savers, give a solid prospect of growth and social development".
    Conte said "Italy must be a reference country in the protection of people with disabilities, that doesn't leave with experience be lost abroad, but is an attractive country for young people who are abroad, that sees a flourishing Mezzogiorno. A country in which the public administration is not permeable to corruption, a country with a fairer and more efficient justice system where everyone, really everyone, pays their taxes, but pays less." Conte said "it will be a reforming season, of relaunch, hope, that offers certainties to the country. We will work for a better country, a country that has safe infrastructure, efficient networks, that is fuelled by renewable energy, that valorises common goods, that stably integrates eco-sustainable wellbeing into its political agenda, that removes inequalities of all types".
    Conte said "we are at the dawn of a new EU legislature and we must recoup the lost time to enable Italy to get the protagonist's role it deserves. The country needs to proceed swiftly" to proposing a new European Commissioner.
    Conte said "it won't be a government 'against' but a government to modernise the country and for the citizens. I will realise a government marking novelty, it's what the political forces are requesting too".
    Conte said "very often in public interventions pronounced hitherto I have evoked the formula of a new humanism, I have never thought it was a slogan of a government, but the ideal horizon of the country".
    Conte said "in the next few days I will return (to President Mattarella) to drop my reservations (on forming a new government) and "in the case of a positive outcome (of talks with parties), to propose the list of ministers".