This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Brussels has dismissed claims by Italy’s populist government that EU spending rules prevented the country from spending enough to keep its infrastructure safe, two days after a devastating bridge collapse killed at least 39 people in Genoa.

Italy’s far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, who is also a deputy prime minister, has firmly pointed the finger at Brussels over the disaster, even as wider attention turned towards the company responsible for the bridge.

“Spending that saves lives, jobs and the right to health must not be part of rigid calculations and of rules imposed by Europe,” he said on Wednesday. On Thursday he stepped up his attack, saying Italy needed to be free to spend public money without the “folly” of EU constraints.

Responding to the latest salvo, the EU budget commissioner, Günther Oettinger, tweeted: “It is very human to look for somebody to blame, when [a] terrible accident happens … still, good to look at facts.”

Taking a similarly robust line, a commission spokesperson said: “We think the time has come to make a few things clear. Member states are free to set specific policy priorities, for instance the development and maintenance of infrastructure. In fact, the EU has encouraged investment in infrastructure in Italy.”

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Italy will receive €2.5bn (£2.3bn) in EU funds for roads and rail over the 2014-20 EU budget period, the commission said, adding that it had recently approved an €8.5bn investment plan for Italian motorways.

In May an EU report on Italy urged the government to spend more on several areas, including infrastructure. Spending on building and maintaining Italian roads fell by 62% between 2007 and 2015, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The commission also said that Italy had repeatedly benefitted from Brussels being prepared to relax its budgetary rules. While the Maastricht treaty requires governments to limit debt to 60%, Italian government debt stands at 132%, after surging upwards during the economic crisis.

Italy’s budget deficit was 2.3% of economic output in 2017, within the EU’s 3% limit. But EU officials fear the government will smash through this barrier after campaign promises to spend up to €100bn while cutting taxes.

Italy’s governing coalition of the far-right League and the populist Five Star Movement are united on a eurosceptic platform that includes opposition to EU budget rules and migration policy.

Play Video 1:06 New aerial footage shows destruction at scene of Genoa bridge collapse – video

The government has already clashed with Brussels over its decision to refuse permission to migrant rescue boats run by humanitarian aid groups to dock at Italian ports.

Luigi Scazzieri, a specialist in EU-Italy relations at the Centre for European Reform, said Salvini’s remarks were clearly “trying to deflect all kinds of responsibility”, but may strike a chord with Italian voters weary of austerity.

“The commission is approaching this as a technicality. Salvini is making a broader political point, which will resonate much more with Italians,” Scazzieri said.

“It is clearly a simplistic [argument] and a wrong one, but people will see that since 2010 we have had spending cuts in so many areas and that is because of the constraints we have because of the euro.

“Salvini, probably, can make quite a good deal of political capital from it. The ones who are at risk are the Five Star, because they have previously ridiculed the idea that that specific bridge was in danger and they have a longstanding opposition to infrastructure projects.”

Italy will seek more flexibility from the commission on the EU’s deficit rule when it submits its draft 2019 budget to the commission in the October.

Scazzieri thinks the conflict will not be pushed too far, in the hope of securing concessions from Brussels. “The idea is to concoct some kind of confrontation because they need that politically in domestic terms.”