Italy’s ‘awful’ annual budget

Italy has missed a golden opportunity to enact lasting reforms.

Italy's grand coalition government, which combines the centre-left and centre-right blocs, has managed to irritate everyone with its 2014 budget.

Three trade union confederations said this week that they would hold rolling strikes and protests against the plan, which aims to trim the budget deficit to 2.5% of GDP next year, down from a projected 3% in 2013.

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