Italy's Di Maio: Respecting EU limits on budget is a suicide

Italy's deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio was out on the wires in the last hour, via Ansa, saying that the only way to respect EU parameters is to make a suicidal budget law that would bring on a recession.

The comments pointed to a possible further escalation of the standoff between Rome and Brussels, which was evident from a further widening of the yield spread between Italian government bonds and German bunds and kept exerting downward pressure on the shared currency.