Scrap rebates or Italy will demand the same 'privilege,' the country's leader tells MPs
Giorgia Meloni has renewed Rome’s long-running attack on EU budget rebates, warning that if other national capitals insist on preserving the “anachronistic” system then Italy will demand a discount of its own.
“The so-called rebates must be abolished. If this anachronistic system is maintained, we will ask that Italy, as the EU’s third-largest net contributor, enjoys the same privilege,” the Italian prime minister told the Italian parliament ahead of next’s week EU summit meeting.
The rebates – annual discounts on national contributions to the EU budget – are absent from the European Commission proposals but resurfaced in a negotiating text circulated by the Danish EU presidency in December.
Italy has consistently pushed for the abolition of the rebate system.
