Finance Minister says Italy to overshoot deficit goal

Finance Minister Vittorio Grilli said Italy's government would overshoot its 2012 deficit goal because of worse-than-expected growth but planned no extra budget cuts because Italy was on target to meet its EU obligations.

"We know there will be a worsening of the nominal deficit," Grilli told Rome's la Repubblica.

"Nonetheless, our compass remains the structural deficit, and on that we are and we will be perfectly in line."

Italy plans to post a structural, or growth-adjusted, budget surplus in 2013, which is what European Union authorities have asked the country to do.