“After too many years of stunted growth and social tensions, Italy has an unmissable opportunity to modernize its institutions and economy, unleashing its enormous entrepreneurial energies and at the same time ensuring that the recovery of growth is sustainable and inclusive ”. With these words Patrizia Grieco concludes her first report as president of Assonime, the association of Italian joint-stock companies, which was held in Rome on Wednesday the private assembly for the renewal of the summit. With the official appointment, which has been awaited for months now, the former number one of Enel thus takes the place of Innocenzo Cipolletta, who has reached the end of his mandate. She is the first woman to reach the top of Assonime.
According to Grieco, with the implementation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan "Italy must do its utmost to ensure that investments and reforms really increase the growth potential of our economy, to avoid the risk that, once the euphoria of European resources is over, we are then unable to repay the loans received”.
WORK
On the employment front, “we must know how to accompany workers towards new jobs – said Grieco – leaving behind those that are no longer productive. The first commitment is to give tools and content to active employment policies, which have never taken off after the approval of the Jobs Act. The problem is urgent, current employment support cannot be extended”.
CONTRACTS
Another issue that has been shelved for too long “concerns the wage bargaining system – added the new president of Assonime – still too unbalanced on national contracts, while the decentralized bargaining component linked to productivity gains does not take off. The decentralization of wage negotiation to the company level played a decisive role, starting in the XNUMXs, in transforming the German economy from the great sick man of Europe into the most productive economy”.
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
For the public administration, "the priority is to restore to public administrators the ability to decide, in compliance with the rules, exercising their administrative discretion at the service of the community - continued Grieco - An integrated vision of public policy measures at national level needs to be re-established , regional and local and a greater ability to plan, plan and monitor the implementation of the initiatives and the execution of the works”.
JUSTICE
On the justice side, “the Plan strengthens the human resources available and focuses on organizational improvements and the strengthening of the Trial Office. The Italian experience shows that some courts are more efficient than others, even with the same resources: it is therefore necessary to spread the best management practices and accelerate the digitization of the process".
COMPETITION
For competition, “in the face of economic and health difficulties and the challenges of the geopolitical context, requests to limit the opening of the markets for products, services and capital have spread in recent years, in Italy and in Europe. In some areas, for example for reasons of national security, those restrictions may find justification, but in general it is necessary to carefully evaluate the limitations of the opening of the markets. Market opening remains a value. The promotion of competition in protected sectors must be pursued with the measures that the Government is committed to issuing by the end of the summer in terms of strategic infrastructures, concessions and local public services, through the second annual Law for the market and competition”.
TREASURY
Assonime has long indicated “the need for a remodulation of tax burdens – underlines the new number one of the Association – lightening the burden on work and business and increasing that on assets and consumption. Furthermore, a drastic simplification of the tax system is needed, which over time has come to fragment into minute forecasts and preferential treatments, almost always granted without economic or systemic logic. New technologies make it possible to implement a severe fight against evasion, which in our country is a mass phenomenon whose very serious economic and social disadvantage the political system struggles to recognize".
BUSINESSES
According to Grieco, "the first emergency that policy makers, both at European and national level, have to face in the current phase is that of the increased risk of insolvency of companies, especially SMEs". Government action “must therefore gradually move towards solvency support policies, also adequately strengthening insolvency procedures. To this end, it is appropriate to enhance the cooperation between public support and the selective capacity of financial intermediaries and investors who have a widespread presence on the market".
CRISIS MANAGEMENT
For the new president of Assonime, "we also need a strengthening of insolvency management and debt restructuring tools, with out-of-court restructuring mechanisms, hybrid forms and more robust insolvency procedures, both to restart companies in difficulty, but recoverable, and to quickly liquidate the compromised companies".
It is also necessary “to simplify and make the insolvency institutions more accessible. The current system, and also the one outlined by the new Crisis Code, are too rigid and the various procedures remain separate and non-communicating. Following the philosophy of the European Restructuring Directive can lead to a radical simplification”.
ONION: HOW IT HAS CHANGED AND WHAT IT HAS BECOME SIMILAR
In taking leave of the Association that he led for four years, Innocenzo Cipolletta said that “Assonime has grown a lot in these two decades thanks to the guidance of the general manager, Stefano Micossi. It has broadened its scope of reflection on a variety of topics (from market regulation to corporate governance, from company law to public finance management) and has taken on a clear European and international dimension. Assonime is today a think-tank appreciated in the world of businesses and institutions, capable of facilitating companies in the application of legislation, not only evaluating the consequences, not speaking with the institutions, but also transmitting proposals for changes to the legislator so that interventions for companies can pursue their objectives without creating too much market distortion. Assonime does not lobby for specific companies, associated or not: it lobby for the proper functioning of the market, in the belief that a well-regulated market is in the best interests of companies and the country”.
GENTILONI: GOAL OF LASTING AND SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
The "unprecedented" operation of the "big plans" of Recovery "basically aims at two objectives": to make "the divergence between the various European countries acceptable, trying to avoid an increase in these differences" and to make "our growth lasting and sustainable". This was stated by the European Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Paolo Gentiloni, in a video message sent to the Assonime assembly.
The goal of Next Generation Eu, continued Gentiloni, “is not just to have our economies rebound: it would be reductive. The rebound is certainly necessary, we have to recover from a huge crisis with more than 6% negative growth in 2020 and much more in countries like Italy, France or Spain. But the pre-covid economy was not a golden age economy in Europe”.
According to the European Commissioner, it is necessary to focus on the "quality of the reforms" and "this applies in particular to Italy".
