The Economic and Financial Planning Document envisages a budget for 2008 that does not improve the deficit on a current legislation basis. The budget will nevertheless have to include expenditure-side measures in order to finance outlays deriving from commitments made by the Government or necessary to continue policies under way but not yet embodied in legislation.
The corrective measures required to achieve a balanced budget are put off to the three years 2009-11; in particular, about half of the reduction is planned for 2011, the last year of the current legislature. The present favourable phase of the economic cycle would have made it possible to accelerate the budget adjustment.