The message coming from Europe is clear: no rejection but an opening of credit, accompanied by eight recommendations. Italy must "urgently" reform the banking sector, the public administration, the labor market, the school, the justice system, the infrastructures, the public procurement system and continue with the consolidation of the accounts. Nothing new in reality and not even anything impossible given that other countries have already made these reforms in the past. Starting with Germany, which at the beginning of the 3s was in a situation very similar to Italy's, with virtually zero growth and out-of-control public finances (the deficit was well over 60% and the debt, despite being close to 2016%, steadily increasing). So much so that Chancellor Schröder was asked for a two-year extension to bring the deficit back within the threshold established by the Treaties. A more gradual path of reduction of the public deficit was necessary, according to Schröder, to implement a series of reforms whose effects would unfold only in the medium-long term (Premier Renzi has asked for the postponement of the balanced budget to XNUMX for the reason similar).
The cornerstone of the 2010 Agenda, this is the name of the programme, was the reform of the labor market which above all changed the incentives of job seekers. In essence, the new rules, the so-called Hartz Laws (which took their name from the former Volkswagen personnel director Peter Hartz), have restricted the provision of benefits to the long-term unemployed, forcing them – in fact – not to refuse reasonable offers. Only those who have worked at least twelve months in the last two years are entitled to the allowance. For one year, however (before the reform the duration was three years). After that, it will be necessary to demonstrate to one of the seventy thousand officials of the employment agencies (in Italy there are less than seven thousand officials) scattered throughout the territory that they are active in job search and that, possibly, they are available to follow retraining courses. In addition to new incentives, the reform has also introduced new contractual figures such as i mini jobs, i.e. fixed-term contracts designed by Schröder above all for women cut off from the labor market because they lack educational qualifications or, at best, are employed illegally in sectors such as domestic services and health care. A mini-job contract provides for fifteen hours a week for a net fee of 300 euros; the contributions – although reduced – are all paid by the employer. Over the years, the salary has been raised to 450 euros per month (in many cases, i mini jobbers also receive state allowances for the house, for utilities and for dependent children) and types of contracts have also been introduced - i midi jobs – in which a part of the contributions is paid by the worker (in which case the salary rises to 800 euros per month).
The flexibilisation of the labor market has come at a very high political price for Chancellor Schröder. Continuous strikes forced him to call snap elections in September 2005, which he will then lose, even if only narrowly. It will then be the government of Grosse Coalition by Angela Merkel to complete the reforms of the 2010 Agenda. In the first place that of the taxman. The Berlin government has, in fact, implemented the largest ever reduction in the tax burden on corporate income, from 38,7 to 30%. The cut was financed by an increase in indirect taxation - raised from 16 to 19% - and the Irpef rate on incomes above 250 thousand euros - from 42 to 45%. On the expenditure side, expenditure was reduced by 5 percentage points in the space of four years (from 48% in 2003 to 43% in 2007; in the same period, in Italy, expenditure increased from 48% to 50%).
The second major reform was that of the federal system. There was the need to modify a complex and cumbersome system which provided that sixty percent of the laws had to have the approval of both Parliament (Bundestag) and the Federal Senate (Bundesrat): a plant not dissimilar from the Italian one, at least from the point of view of inefficiency and length of time. With the reform, the number of laws subject to double passage has been halved.
Ten years after Agenda 2010, Germany has changed radically. It is no longer the "sick of Europe" but the first European power. The country is growing, finances are in order, the number of jobless is at an all-time low: according to Eurostat data for April, unemployment stands at 5,2% and "rises" to 7,9% among young people ( in Italy, the data are, respectively, 12,6% and 43,3%). In particular, since 2003, the female employment rate has increased by ten points, settling at 71,5% against 62,4% of the European average and 50,5% in Italy. Much of this result can be attributed precisely to the introduction of the mini jobs. A tool, unpopular with many in Italy, but which worked in Germany, to the point that even the Social Democrats and the trade unions now recognize its advantages. Perhaps it is not the ideal solution in the long run, but in the short term it could lead to an increase in both employment and revenue through the emergence of undeclared work.
