The populist government has never ceased its dialogue with the European Commission on debt-laden Italy's finances, populist premier Giuseppe Conte told reporters Thursday on the sidelines of an informal European summit in Sibiu, Romania.
"The dialogue has never been interrupted. Even in our talks today with (Commission president) Jean-Claude Juncker, we agreed on another update soon," Conte said.
Italy looked set for a fresh clash with Brussels after the European Commission on Tuesday cut its growth prediction for Italy this year to 0.1 percent and said its public finances would deteriorate further - part of a generally gloomy set of EU forecasts.
The Commission's prediction that Italy's deficit will hit 3.5 percent of GDP in 2020 would put Italy in breach of the eurozone's 3 percent limit for the first time since 2011.
The EU executive came close to penalising Italy over an excessive deficit 2019 target before Brussels and Rome did a deal last December on its fiscal plans. Under the deal Rome promised to delay key spending measures and bring the deficit down to 2.04 per cent this year.
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