Matteo Renzi: Enough money to rebuild after quake

Rebuilding schools is top priority, Italian PM said.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said Thursday there would be enough money to reconstruct the villages in central Italy that were destroyed by an earthquake in August, but he didn’t commit on a specific sum.

“The money to start with is there, then it’s hard to make estimates on costs, it depends what you include. But we’re not afraid to put in everything that serves for Home Italy,” Renzi said, news agency Ansa reported.

Home Italy is the name of the plan Renzi announced in the aftermath of the August 24 earthquake to make Italy more quake-proof.

“I’m thinking of schools for example, on which there’s no discussion,” Renzi told journalists after a meeting in the Italian Senate to discuss the government’s response to the quake.

Renzi’s comments came a day after Laura Boldrini, the head of Italy’s lower house of parliament, said on Twitter that the money saved this year by the institution would be used to help Italians affected by the quake.

“I’m proud that the €47 million saved this year by Montecitorio [the Chamber of Deputies] will be used to help the population affected by the quake,” she wrote.

Villages in the regions of Lazio and Marche were devastated in the August 24 earthquake, in which 298 people were killed.

Renzi’s government is putting pressure on the European Commission to agree with a budget proposal that includes funds for earthquake victims and migrants.

A new budget for 2017 approved by the government Tuesday foresees that the deficit will reach 2 percent of GDP,  Italian media reported. But costs due to “exceptional circumstances” were excluded from the budget. If included, the deficit would have reached 2.4 percent of GDP.

Italy’s debt exceeded 130 percent of GDP in 2016, well over the 60 percent that are requested by EU rules, and is likely to keep growing next year.

While the government had repeatedly called on the Commission to show flexibility when assessing Italy’s fiscal compliance, Renzi said it was not needed this time. “There is a 0.4 percent target for exceptional circumstances that is something different from flexibility,” he said after the cabinet meeting Tuesday.

Renzi added government spending on refugees and post-earthquake reconstruction were “exceptional circumstances” and should not be taken into account in Commission’s assessment of the budget.

Jacopo Barigazzi contributed reporting.