Debt reduction must be credible, gradual, steady - Panetta

(ANSA) - ROME, MAR 25 - Italian debt reduction must be credible, gradual and steady, Bank of Italy Governor Fabio Panetta said Monday.
    The reduction of Italy's "high public debt" must be implemented with "the Einaudian principle of striving, with the necessary flexibility, for a lasting re-balancing of public accounts," Panetta said at the conference 'The teachings of Luigi Einaudi'.
    "This requires both short- and medium-term expenditure planning and measures capable of ensuring a gradual but steady debt reduction over time," he said.
    A credible reduction path "will increase the room for manoeuvre for fiscal interventions of a social nature and to cope with future unforeseen situations".
    Einaudi (1874 -1961) was a former Bank of Italy governor and economist who served as Italy's first president from 1948 to 1955.
    Italy's public debt is currently just over 137% of GDP and the government aims to bring it down to 135% in two years' time.
    It is the second biggest in the eurozone after Greece's.
    It ballooned to almost 160% at the height of the COVID pandemic in mid 2021 but has since fallen. (ANSA).