Giorgetti skeptical about chances of common EU debt

(ANSA) - PARMA, SEP 20 - Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said Friday that he was skeptical about the chances of Mario Draghi's call for an expansion of the EU's common debt to reach its goals, made in his new report on boosting the bloc's competitiveness, ever coming to fruition.
    "Every time I propose an extension on the deadline on the use of the post-pandemic Recovery Fund at Ecofin, the artillery of the German, Swedish and Finnish ministers starts," Giorgetti told a festival in Parma organized by the Open online newspaper run by young journalists.
    "In these conditions, I'd be quite skeptical about the common European debt".
    The also said that the cut in the labour-tax wedge for lower earners that the government made in its 2023 budget law and confirmed in the 2024 budget would become permanent.
    The government says that the six-percentage-point reduction in the labour-tax wedge for those earning up to 35,000 euros and the seven-percentage-point reduction for those earning up to 25,000 euros is worth an average increase of around 100 euros a month in the pay packets of 14 million workers. (ANSA).