Roundup: Italian PM adamant about budget, showdown with EU unlikely

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is taking a strong stand to defend his country's growth-oriented 2016 budget proposal against potential revisions mandated by the European Union (EU), but experts say that a showdown with Brussels is unlikely.

Italy submitted a 27-billion-euro (30.7-billion-U.S. dollar) proposal for its budget for next year to the European Commission on Oct. 15, which is in charge of assessing national budgets of EU member countries to see if they comply with EU fiscal rules.

The EU executive body might demand from Italy some changes in the draft before it is approved by Italy's parliament.

Renzi has been using every opportunity to show he will resist taking orders from "eurocrats."

"Italy gives Europe a lot of money," Renzi said in one recent speech. "Every year, we give 20 billion euros (22.5 billion U.S. dollars) to the EU and we get 11 billion euros (12.4 billion U.S. dollars) back in benefits," he said.

In another speech, Renzi said "the EU can advise us, but it cannot tell us what taxes to cut."

The Italian prime minister said that if the EU sends the budget proposal back with requests for changes, he would ignore the requests and would resubmit the document "as it already is."

The 2016 budget must be approved by the Italian parliament by the end of this year.

A key measure was the abolition of a controversial property tax on primary residencies, Renzi said when he sent the budget proposal to the European Commission.

The budget would also introduce tax cuts on agricultural equipment and farm buildings, a decrease in levies on municipal services, and a tax break for companies investing in new machinery.

Other provisions included cutting the TV license fee, stopping a planned value-added-tax hike, and increasing resources for poor people and social housing.

Renzi and his advisors believe its mix of lower taxes and higher incentives will give momentum to the so-far slow economic recovery from Italy's decade-long economic malaise.

However, Brussels might believe that the budget is likely to see the Italian government's debt continue to swell, despite a gradual improvement in the country's economic growth rates.

If the EU sends the budget plan back marked with red ink, a showdown between Rome and Brussels is still unlikely, experts say.

"I think what we are seeing here is Renzi's style," Arianna Montanari, a professor of sociology and politics at La Sapienza University in Rome, told Xinhua.

"He has done the same thing with his reforms. He starts talking very strong and that makes the other side reconsider its position, and then he will compromise from there," Montanari said.

Antonio Villafranca, president of the Institute for the Study of International Politics, an international affairs think tank, agreed.

"You have to look at the statement in context," Villafranca told Xinhua."Sure it's a negotiation technique. But Renzi is also saying that Italy has done what it thinks is best. That should be taken into account."

Maria Rossi, a polling expert and co-founder of survey firm Opinioni,said that there were pluses and minuses to Renzi's negotiation strategy.

"On the positive side, no Italian leader has ever lost popularity by standing up to Brussels," Rossi told Xinhua.

"On the negative side, if a leader does it too often, the other side starts to expect it and it will no longer be effective," Rossi said. Endi