Confindustria is asking for a majority electoral law capable of guaranteeing governance. And on the more concrete level of economic policy, he is proposing to the government to eliminate the tax wedge for companies that hire young people for three years. These are the two qualifying lines of the intervention with which Vincenzo Boccia, president of the industrial association, opened the annual assembly on Wednesday in Rome. In front of him were 3.000 industrialists from all over Italy and the ministers Padoan, Calenda, Minniti, Madia and Galletti. A minute's silence to remember the victims of the Manchester massacre.
Confindustria: a law that ensures governance
"Indulging the proportionalist temptation, which we see re-emerging today in many proposals for electoral law, could prove fatal for Italy," said Vincenzo Boccia. Italy cannot waste, he warned, an economic situation that is turning out to be better than expected, waiting "idlely for the passage of a long electoral period".
Confindustria: a pact for growth with trade unions and politics
To create employment and combat Italy's great vulnerability, Confindustria is ready for a "Pact of purpose for growth between entrepreneurs, workers and their representatives, financial institutions, politics".
For Boccia, however, aoperation truth on debt, deficit and growth, and it is necessary abandon “imaginative recipes and easy consensus", to be left to those who "invent leaders" and propaganda for "dangerous adventures that would lead us straight out of Europe". There is a recovery but it is slow, observes the president of Confindustria and the per capita income is at 1998 levels”. “Twenty Lost Years”. According to the president of the industrialists, "Italian GDP in 2017 will still be 6% below the 2007 level, we will remain the only large country in the euro area to record a lower value of economic activity this year than ten years ago and, at the rate of 1%, we will not see it again before 2023”.
Then touching on one of the themes that will be at the center of the G7 agenda in Taormina, the president of the industrialists says that "protectionism, closure and isolation are never the right answer", underlining that "globalization must be governed" but not arrested, and hopes that this message will emerge "loud and clear" from the summit on Friday.
Confindustria: off the tax wedge for three years
The leader of the industrialists then stressed that it is priority to solve the problem of unemployment, and for this reason he has asked for a zeroing of the tax wedge for three years for companies that hire young people. “Just when the greatest technological leap of the last few decades, the digital one, is beginning to realize its potential in Italy as well, we cannot give up involving young people: those who go to use their skills elsewhere and those who are waiting to an opportunity that never comes. That's why non-ordinary measures are needed, that's why we ask that the available resources be concentrated on eliminating the tax wedge for three years for companies that hire young people“. "We must launch a major operation to include young people in the world of work", remarks Boccia, arguing that "the lack of youth employment is our wasted value". We need "a strong, direct, perceptible measure".
Confindustria: Calenda, no protectionism but no predatory behavior
Development Minister Calenda spoke out against the gusts of economic nationalism, announcing that "already in the next few days I will send an Italian proposal to Brussels" on the acquisitions of hi-tech companies by non-EU groups. The rationale is to "build a safeguard clause to prevent the country from being stripped of its own technologies." And he reiterates: “I want to repeat it once again. It's not a question of defending the Italian character of the properties or worse of questioning the principles of openness that refolate our economy but of protecting Italy from behaviors that distort the purposes of these principles”. Finally Calenda reaffirmed the "No to protectionism but assertiveness in the defense against incorrect or predatory behaviour". The minister returned to opposing the defense not of the Italian spirit of companies but of Italian companies, reaffirming that "foreign investments are essential for Italy to grow".
Responding to Boccia on the proposal for a Pact for growth, the minister finally recalled that "With Minister Poletti we are working on a Work and Welfare 4.0 Plan to be presented at the next Control Room and the contribution of the trade unions will be essential in this area" . In agreement with Boccia “on the aims of a 'Pact for the Factory' which brings bargaining closer to business. And we are ready to do our part by evaluating a further tax reduction on productivity bonuses and wages”. Increasing productivity is the way to grow and “there are no shortcuts”.
(updated at 13.00)
