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"It's necessary that monetary policy remain expansionary for a long time," Fabio Panetta, one of the Italian central banks's four executive board members, said in a speech.
Normalizing monetary policy can be achieved without causing a negative shock for the euro zone economy or the financial system "as long as it is done in a context of robust growth and in a gradual way," said Panetta.
Italy is the euro zone's most sluggish economy and has its second highest public debt as a proportion of national output.