“The Italian government has come a long way. The solution found for 2019 is not ideal, but it allows us to avoid the infringement procedure, provided that the agreed measures are implemented. An important change is that the new Italian plan is based on plausible economic forecasts”, which see next year's GDP growing by 1% instead of 1,5%. Thus the Vice-President of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, commented the agreement reached with Italy on the 2019 Budget law.
"CORRECT MANEUVER FOR 10,25 BILLION: THE STRUCTURAL DEFICIT IS NOT WORSEN"
The Italian government has made a correction to the 2019 accounts of 10,25 billion euros, which will rise to 12,242 billion in 2020 and 15,997 billion in 2021: "In the new economic scenario, next year's deficit-GDP will be 2,04, 0,8% – continued Dombrovskis – and the deterioration of the structural deficit was reduced from XNUMX% of the initial project to zero”.
"WORRY ABOUT 2020-2021: IN ORDER NOT TO INCREASE VAT, WE WILL NEED TO FIND HUGE RESOURCES ELSEWHERE"
On the other hand, according to the vice-president of the Commission, "the composition of the announced measures continues to cause concern", because "when the basic income and the pension reform come into full force, they will give rise to higher costs in the following years". To compensate them, Italy "is committed to activating the safeguard clause on VAT, but we know that Rome has never activated this clause in the past, so if it doesn't want to do so, it will have to find huge resources elsewhere".
MOSCOVICI: "WE HAVE SHOWN THAT WE ARE NOT ENEMIES"
The Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Pierre Moscovici, underlined that "on a political level, the Commission has preferred dialogue to confrontation, which some had also hoped for". This agreement, according to the Frenchman, “demonstrates that the Commission is not an enemy of the Italian people, as someone wanted to portray it. We are not a machine of insensitive bureaucrats who drop austerity from above and deny democracy: our rules are compatible with democratic choices and political changes, which we respect and on which we do not take sides. Italy is dear to the euro area and the euro area emerges strengthened by this agreement”.
CONTE: "CITIZENSHIP INCOME AND QUOTE 100 DO NOT CHANGE"
The Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, assured in the course of a report to the Senate that “citizenship income and quota 100 will start on schedule and that their concrete impact will not change. We have safeguarded the structure of the maneuver – he added – and we have not given up on the contents, certain of the virtuous effects that an expansionary maneuver could have on the economic and social fabric in the medium term. And in any case we remain firm in the decisions taken with the government contract. In other words, we intend to respond to the strongly felt need to reverse the austerity policies which in recent years have led to a compression of incomes, a drop in consumption and a general impoverishment of the population”.
Palazzo Chigi has announced that the two flagship measures, basic income and quota 100, will both start at the end of March.
“In order to ensure the achievement of the budget planning objectives – Conte said again – the government has envisaged a provision for the temporary setting aside of a part of some specific appropriations for the total amount of two billion. The amounts set aside will be made available in the event that the monitoring of the accounts certifies the budget objectives.
