ROME: The possibility of a future hike in interest rates by the European Central Bank is a matter of concern for highly indebted countries like Italy, according to Italy's economy minister on Saturday.

Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said at an event in Rome that "as a country we have benefited for many years from a favorable situation, with interest rates near or below zero, and this is now changing."

As widely anticipated, the ECB raised its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points on Thursday. However, the bank dashed hopes that rate hikes were nearing an end by announcing additional increases in the coming months.

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Right-wing Italian ministers criticized the ECB, increasing financial pressure on one of the euro zone's most indebted countries.

League leader and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini labeled the ECB's actions as "incredible, shocking and worrying", while Defense Minister Guido Crosetto warned that the actions were aimed at helping Russia undermine Western support for Ukraine. takes risks.

Giorgetti, a member of the Leading League coalition, said the rate hike "should in some way advise us to be more careful with regard to public finances and to assess the consequences for the real economy."

Italy's 2023 budget, which is currently making its way through parliament, includes funding of around 21 billion euros in the first quarter of next year to help businesses and households pay their electricity and gas bills , as sky-high energy prices hit the economy.

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Giorgetti said it was "unrealistic" to expect bill cuts by March and that Rome was considering new relief measures, such as a plan to set a protected price for energy consumption that would be 70–80% lower than in previous years. is more.

According to him, this mechanism could go into effect the following spring in an effort to promote energy conservation. In addition, Giorgetti has opened the U.S. from the European Union. Urged to take decisive action against the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which he claimed was putting the country's economy at risk.

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After the IRA plan, "some Italian companies considering moving production to the U.S. would be a disaster." The European Union (EU) is concerned that the $430 billion IRA scheme, with its generous tax breaks for domestic production of energy sector components, could lure EU businesses away and hurt European firms, from automakers to green technology developers Can deliver