Christiane Amanpour
Verified account @camanpour
JUST IN: Ukraine’s President @poroshenko tells me that during a phone call with Mike Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State pledged “full assistance, including military assistance,” to protect Ukrainian sovereignty.
https://twitter.com/camanpour/status/1067486566455472128
For a brief moment on Tuesday, it looked as if the populists running Italy's government had finally blinked in their monthslong budget standoff with the European Commission. Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who is effectively running Italy's government along with fellow Deputy PM Luigi Di Maio, suggested that Italy could back off its 2.4% deficit target, so long as all of the fiscal stimulus promised by their government could be preserved.
But after meeting Monday night with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to discuss the country's response to the Commission's unprecedented rejection of Italy's budget (as well as its decision to recommend an "Excessive Deficit Procedure") Salvini and Di Maio clarified on Tuesday that any reduction in the deficit target would be minimal - 20 or 40 basis points on the outside, keeping it well above the Commission's recommendation for a 0.8% deficit. For Italian bondholders and those who own Italian bank shares, this is certainly unwelcome news, evidenced by a flattening yield curve on Tuesday as bonds reversed some of their gains from the day before.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-27/eu-delegates-reportedly-approve-plan-levy-billions-euros-fines-against-italy
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