Italy plot to RIP UP EU budget rules as it vows to TAKE BACK CONTROL from Brussels

Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini sent a stark warning to Brussels in a set of remarks that could set a hostile tone between the two powers for months to come.

Mr Salvini and 5-Star’s Luigi Di Maio have previously blasted that a budget deficit ceiling of three percent of economic output set under EU rules is hurting economic growth in Italy.

League leader Mr Salvini told newspaper Corriere della Sera: “Tax cuts? They will be in the next budget adjustment. Brussels needs to review its rules.”

Claudio Borghi, head of the budget committee in Italy’s lower house of Parliament, said the eurozone’s third-largest economy was looking to rip up EU budget rules.

He said: “If the debt grows a little and the gross domestic product also grows, that’s not the problem.

“The only thing we need is expansionary policies.

Italy is last in the world for growth. We have the need and the right to put some gasoline in the motor, or no?”

Mr Borghi told newspaper la Republicca Spain has recently announced that it “won’t care about budget targets. Why not us?”

The radical government programme for governing put forward on Friday included slashing taxes, increasing spending and cracking down on “radical Islamic associations”.

The spending plan also includes a proposed restriction on payments to the EU.

These could violate EU budget rules, that put a strict limit on the size of a country’s deficit.

The threat has rattled EU chiefs who already fear the colossal bank deficit in Italy.