Italy opposes quantitative targets to reduce banks bad loans

LUXEMBOURG: Italy's finance minister Giovanni Tria said on Friday the European Union should not set quantitative targets to reduce banks' stocks of bad loans as part of an overhaul of EU banking rules.

On the reduction of bad loans "we should never set quantitative targets," Giovanni Tria told a news conference in Luxembourg after a meeting of EU finance ministers, the first he attended after the creation of a new eurosceptic government in Italy.

His remarks came after Germany and France proposed to reduce banks' exposure to bad loans to a maximum of 5 percent of their lending to speed up the reform of the bloc's banking sector. Italy's banks on average hold 11.1 percent of bad loans, according to European Banking Authority data.