Italy’s Giorgetti Rejects Notion of Red Lines on Bond Yields

(Bloomberg) — Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti rebuffed the notion that a certain yield level on Italian bonds would compromise the government’s finances.

(Bloomberg) — Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti rebuffed the notion that a certain yield level on Italian bonds would compromise the government’s finances.

“There are no levels on spreads that are red or yellow or other,” Giorgetti told reporters in Rome on Monday.

Italy’s 10-year yield premium over Germany — a measure of confidence in a country’s debt sustainability — breached 200 basis points twice this month. That’s after the new Italian budget showed the deficit won’t go back to European Union limits until 2026 — a year later than originally planned.

Such moves will keep European Central Bank officials on alert, Governing Council member Gabriel Makhlouf told Bloomberg last week.  

Bank of Italy Governor Ignazio Visco — also an ECB policymaker — told Bloomberg Television’s Francine Lacqua on Friday that there’s no cause for excessive concern, and that “there are no signs” that spreads are at a point that would require intervention.

For the Italian cental bank chief, the main issue is expansion — and proving to markets that the economy has the potential to grow out of its problems.

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