Italy can cope with new EU budget rules, economy minister says

ROME (Reuters) - Italy multi-year deficit projections are already broadly in line with new European Union budget rules which are set to kick in next year, the country's economy minister said on Monday.

"The [required] adjustment is fully within our reach," Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said, addressing parliament on Italy's state finances.

The latest reform of the bloc's two-decade-old fiscal rules sets a slow but steady pace of deficit and debt reduction from 2025 over four to seven years.

Giorgetti said the Treasury's latest deficit projections unveiled this month already appear consistent with the new rules when factoring in a "manageable correction profile" to be carried out over seven years.

(Reporting by Giuseppe Fonte; Editing by Keith Weir)