A profound rationalization of the Italian Chamber of Commerce system which envisages, among other things, mergers of Chambers of commerce and special companies, the introduction of standard costs (which alone can bring savings of 300 million euros when fully operational), the reduction the number of councilors. This is a summary of the proposal put forward by the President of Unioncamere, Ferruccio Dardanello, on the occasion of the Unioncamere hearing held yesterday before the Constitutional Affairs Commission of the Chamber of Deputies on the so-called "PA Decree".
“The State” recalled Dardanello “assigns a growing series of tasks to the Chambers of Commerce ranging from keeping the Business Register to those of protests and environmental managers, to issuing digital signatures and tachograph cards, to managing over 3200 Suap (One Stop Shop for production activities) delegated by the municipalities, for the management of commodity exchanges, metrology, product safety, receipt of applications for trademarks and patents, development of local infrastructures, support for the internationalization of small and medium-sized businesses and more. Not to mention that the stability law for 2014 commits the chambers of commerce to finance the Confidi for at least 70 million a year for the next three years. To this it must be added that the Chambers pay the State budget about 80 million a year between cost savings and taxes and that they directly support the expenses of the sanctioning activities delegated by the State (about 15 million euros a year)".
During the hearing, the President of Unioncamere pointed out to the parliamentarians, among other things, the negative effects on GDP and employment of the proposal to cut 50% of the fee paid by companies for registration in the Business Register. If the rule introduced with the decree is not amended by Parliament, in fact, against a saving of around 5 euros per month per company, net of taxes, the recessive effect resulting from the reduction in direct funding from the Chambers of commerce to companies and the territory in 2015 could be worth 2,5 billion less than GDP.
On the employment front, Unioncamere then underlined that "between public personnel with permanent contracts of the Chambers of commerce and personnel with private contracts of special companies, regional Unions and system companies, there would be a potential redundancy of personnel equal to approximately 2.600 units", at least half of which should be reallocated with costs borne by the State, as has been done on other occasions for similar situations.
In consideration of these effects, Unioncamere has proposed to make the reduction of revenue from the annual fee gradual, and therefore sustainable for the Chambers of commerce, industry, handicrafts and agriculture in Italy. Graduality, explained Ferruccio Dardanello, would make it possible to carry out "the imminent reorganization of the entire chamber system which will thus be able to achieve, within three years, the expected result of halving the annual fee due by companies" (corresponding to about 63 euros per company on average per year).
During the hearing, President Dardanello also recalled the numerous testimonies in support of the action of the Chambers of Commerce sent by several hundred companies to the attention of the Government during the survey launched by the executive in view of the reform of the Public Administration .
