Italian Finance Minister Domenico Siniscalco ruled out Tuesday new measures to reduce Italy's deficit this year, downplaying Brussels's expected launch of excessive deficit procedures against Rome.

"The case of procedures should not be dramatized. We have a constructive relation with the (European) Commission," he told a briefing on the sidelines of a meeting here with his EU counterparts.

"I don't see reasons for new (budget-tightening) measures on the basis of statistics for the first quarter," Siniscalco added.

EU economic affairs commissioner Joaquin Almunia said Tuesday that the European Commission, which is responsable for policing deficits in the EU, would take the first steps towards disciplinary action against Rome "probably before June" because its deficit was exceeding an EU limit of three percent of output.

The Italian government has told Brussels that its deficit came in at 3.0 percent of gross domestic product last year, but the EU's statistics arm, Eurostat, refuses to validate the figure, which could be even greater, Almunia said.

The European Commission has forecast that Italy's deficit could stand at 3.6 percent of GDP this year and swell to 4.6 percent in 2006.