Take time. This is now Italy's goal, which is negotiating with the European Commission and with the other 26 EU members to obtain a referral to the green light for the infringement procedure. We talk about to shift everything from the Ecofin scheduled for July 9 to the next meeting, which will be held in October. That is, not only after the budget settlement, coming next week, but also after the update note to Def, scheduled for mid-September, and the draft of the Budget lawto be submitted by the end of the same month.
Brussels seems willing, provided however that Italy does not limit itself to correcting the accounts for 2018-2019, but also assumes clear and stringent commitments on those of 2020, which risk seeing the deficit jump to 3,5% of GDP (half a percentage point above the Maastricht benchmark) and the debt breaking down the 135% barrier.
Accepting these conditions would mean for Italy put a mortgage on the budget maneuver, already burdened by VAT clauses which will require 23 billion to be sterilized. Moral: there is no room for the flat tax from "at least 15 billion" that the Northern League's deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, has been taking for granted for weeks now, regardless of the need to finance the deficit measure.
That the head of the Carroccio agrees to lower the flag of the flat tax is by no means obvious. On the contrary, it seems unlikely, given the tones of a permanent electoral campaign used by the Minister of the Interior and the defiant words addressed daily by the Interior Ministry to Brussels.
On the other hand, the phase that is opening is the most delicate that the Conte government has gone through so far: in fact, on 20 July the window of time to bring the country back to the polls by the end of September closes, at the end of an unprecedented summer electoral campaign. Many are betting that the government crisis will open by that date. And the dispute over the flat tax could be the pretext that the League was looking for.
