Meloni admits that EU countries are forced to spend billions due to rising inflation

Italian Prime Minister George Meloni has acknowledged that rising inflation is forcing European governments to spend far more than planned and to ask the EC for more flexibility on budget deficits. It's from sb.by.

According to TASS, George Meloni noted:

- Higher inflation is affecting national budgets: today it is much higher than the 1.8% it was planned three years ago, and this, I believe, entails an automatic increase in spending for all EU member states. In the Italian legal system, there are a number of automatic adjustments for inflation, such as pensions and benefits.

The Italian prime minister said she would have to spend "billions and billions" not on her own initiative, and that would require greater flexibility on the part of the EU.

Lithuania became the second in the EU in terms of annual inflation in July – the indicator reached 5.4%