• Juncker, Rehn confirmed their appreciation of Italy austerity package
  • US debt ceiling deal hasn’t eased market tensions
  • Markets still don’t reflect important decisions taken by EU on debt crisis
  • Must bring certainty to markets
  • Tensions not only affecting italy, also many others in euro zone
  • As often happens in in confidence crises, markets not tightly assessing situation of Italy
  • Italian banks well capitalized, credit to private sector stronger than in other countries
  • Sell off in Italian bank shares, absolutely excessive
  • Italy deficit targets respect what we agreed with EU
  • Must improve quality of public services, free up reources for investments
  • Essential government, parliament acts quickly on tax reform
  • Govt committed to striking a deal with unions, employers on plan for growth
  • Aims to reform labour market rules in agreement with unions

No mention so far of the possibility of bringing forward some future planned spending cuts….