Countries that respect overall European Union deficit targets should be given greater "flexibility" to finance job creation programmes, dpa quoted Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta as saying Saturday. On Wednesday, the European Commission is expected to remove Italy from its deficit "black list," in recognition for its efforts to comply with the bloc's 3-per-cent threshold on budget shortfalls. In a letter to EU President Herman Van Rompuy, Letta said it was "necessary to award" countries off that list "the possibility to benefit from real margins of flexibility to make investments targeted at creating jobs." Letta said he would discuss his ideas with Van Rompuy during his visit to Rome on May 31. According to EU-sanctioned government plans, Italy should not only maintain its deficit below 3 per cent of gross domestic product, but also reduce it to 1.3 per cent by 2016. Earlier this week, Letta's EU affairs advisor, Stefano Grassi, spoke of the "possibility to temporarily deviate" from that deficit-trimming path for up to three years, while remaining below the benchmark 3-per-cent figure. Standing at 126.1 per cent in 2012, Italy has the highest public debt to GDP ratio in Europe after Greece.
