Italian PM Conte says EU growth estimates are wrong - paper

ROME (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told an Italian daily on Friday that Rome challenged European Union's growth projections and would not take any budget decisions based on those numbers.

Rome is in talks with Brussels to try and stop the launching of an excessive deficit procedure triggered by Italy's overly high debt.

"We believe we need to defend our positions and we're not ready to chase estimates which do not reflect the reality of things," Conte told Il Messaggero in an interview.

(Reporting by Valentina Za, editing by Stephen Jewkes)