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The
plan is part of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's efforts to keep
in check the euro zone's second-largest debt pile as a
proportion of GDP, while investors keep a close eye on Rome's
creaking public finances.
Italy's debt-to-GDP ratio is seen edging down to 139.6% in 2026,
from 140.2% this year.
The new targets factor in the proceeds of asset disposals
expected in the next three years, the DEF said, showing that
without the sell-off plans the debt burden would probably rise.
Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said in the document that
the stake sales would involve companies that are subject to
privatization commitments already agreed with the European
Commission.
This is a reference to bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS),
which was bailed-out in 2017 at a cost of 5.4 billion euros for
taxpayers.
The Treasury is expected to hire advisers for the bank's
re-privatization process, bankers said, though Giorgetti
recently poured cold water on the prospect of quick action by
saying the government had no urgent need for cash.
Italy will also sell shares in companies in which the Treasury's
stake "exceeds that necessary to maintain an appropriate
coherence and unity of strategic direction", Giorgetti added,
without providing further details.
However, Italy's governments have a record of missed
privatization targets dating back to before the COVID-19
pandemic, which triggered a long spell of expansionary fiscal
policy that has not yet ended.
In 2018, the then Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte pledged to raise
some 18 billion euros from asset disposals by the end of the
following year to help lower the debt and reassure investors,
but the plan produced no results.
($1 = 0.9461 euros)
(Reporting by Giuseppe Fonte; Editing by Helen Popper)
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