Italy can look forward to a period of strong growth after the economic earthquake caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Premier Mario Draghi told the Lower House on Wednesday as he reported to parliament before this week's EU summit.
"The economic situation in Europe and Italy is improving in a big way," Draghi said.
"According to the European Commission's projections, Italy will grow by 4.2% and 4.4% in 2021 and 2022 respectively, like the rest of the EU.
"Many of the indicators that we have tell us that the recovery will probably be even more sustained.
"In short, confidence is coming back".
He said the turnaround in the outlook had come about thanks to the speed of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign.
"Our aim is to overcome the anaemic growth that Italy registered before the pandemic in a lasting, sustainable way," Draghi added.
"During the pandemic we used substantial resources to protect the productive capacity of our economy.
"Now we must make sure that aggregate demand is capable of meeting these levels of supply".
The premier said stronger growth would make it possible to "reduce the debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratio, which increased a lot during the pandemic".
He said that it is "fundamentally important to maintain an expansive budget policy at the European level in the coming months".
He said the possible outbreak of new variants of the coronavirus was among the downside risks.
He said another of these risks regarded "social cohesion and environmental sustainability".
"Recent periods of recovery from crises have often favoured only some sections of the population, penalizing the less wealthy, the young, women," he said.
"We have not paid the required attention to the climate crisis, which hits the most fragile areas of our country, above all.
"This time we must act differently.
"For example, we must implement active effective labour policies to help those who need training to find a new job".
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