With Covid prevailing, the Senate is committed to evaluate hypotheses of "lightening" for those in financial difficulty. In the Agriculture Committee, the examination of a bill begins which provides for contributions for the extinction of liabilities for agricultural enterprises. Encouraging the facilitated transaction of positions classified as non-performing or unlikely to pay loans to banks is instead the bill being examined by the Finance Commission. Let's start with this last provision.
According to the latest industry data, the stock overall non-performing loans, i.e. all those credit positions for which there is difficulty in their repayment by the debtor, in Italy reached 2020 billion euros in 340 and in the year just begun this figure could still rise and touch the record historical figure of 441 billion in 2022. A situation that has led to thinking about extraordinary measures suitable for achieving an effective reduction of these anomalous items both for the stability of the Italian credit system and for the revitalization of the national economic and productive system, and above all for the survival of many families.
Therefore, the bill being examined by the Finance Commission provides – in a nutshell – the possibility recognized to the debtor of agree with the financial intermediary, towards which it has a non-performing debt, or one classified as unlikely to pay, an out-of-court settlement for the full and complete repayment of the amount due by paying an amount not less than the net book value of its exposure.
Warning: this is an extraordinary and no longer repeatable measure, being limited only to loans classified as non-performing as at 31 December 2020. We come to the agricultural sector which is going through a period of extreme criticality with serious and evident negative effects on the economic and social level. Well, the provision that begins the process in the Agriculture Commission of Palazzo Madama offers agricultural companies in difficulty the possibility of a settlement of onerous liabilities by deferring payment commitments over a sufficiently long period of time, so that the balance of the individual installments is less burdensome and allows companies to continue their business.
Three tools are provided: a) an interest subsidy on the loans taken out; b) interest subsidy to extend the duration of mortgages or agricultural loans up to thirty-five years; c) grants up to a maximum of 25 per cent of debts deriving from agricultural credit operations for the year or for improvement, as well as from financial exposures intended for the needs of the agricultural enterprise, also deriving from natural disasters and even if already expired and not paid or with deadlines already extended or being extended.
