ROME (Reuters) - Italy’s government has no intention of leaving the euro, Claudio Borghi, the economics spokesman of the right-wing League, said on Tuesday, clarifying earlier remarks which had roiled financial markets.

“Leaving the euro is not in the government’s program and it has no plans to do so,” Borghi, a eurosceptic economist, told Reuters in a telephone conversation.

Earlier, Italian government bond yields rose sharply after Borghi said in a radio interview that Italy would benefit from more favorable economic conditions if it were outside the euro.

“I just repeated what I have always said: that I am personally convinced that Italy would be better off with its own currency but that it is not in the government’s program. It’s my standard answer, I’ve said it a thousand times,” Borghi told Reuters.

Borghi is a lawmaker and president of the lower house budget committee but is not a minister.