The European Commission has expressed its opinion on the Italian maneuver. According to Brussels, the budget law "is not fully in line" with the recommendations of the Council and therefore the Italian Government must "be ready to introduce the necessary measures” to get public finances back on track. Our country therefore remains under observation and an infringement procedure for excessive deficit could be opened next spring.
A judgment similar to that of Italy was reserved for 11 other countries, including Germany and Holland, who are usually "top of the class". On France, however, the judgment is much more severe: the French financial company is considered "not in line" with the recommendations of the Commissions. Overall, 4 countries are judged to be "not in line".
Maneuver: the findings of the EU Commission
The EU recommendations to Italy for 2023 and 2024 called for limit spending growth at 1,3%, and according to the latest EU forecasts next year it will be 0,9%, states the EU Commission in the opinion on Italy's programmatic document. With the superbonus however in 2023 it was higher than expected and taking into account the "baseline scenario" in the compliance of the maneuver "the resulting growth rate in 2024 would be higher than the recommended growth rate of 0,6% of GDP". “Net primary expenditure financed at national level – we read – is assessed as not completely in line with the recommendation”.
The EU Commission also believes “that Italy has accomplished limited progress on structural elements of the budgetary recommendations made by the Council on 14 July 2023 and invites the Italian authorities to accelerate progress".
“Overall, frequent changes in fiscal policy are increasing uncertainty in the economy, making the tax system more complex and increasing the burden on compliant businesses and families", states the European Commission, recalling that the recommendations to the country are "to further reduce taxes on labor and to make the tax system more efficient", implement the enabling law on tax reform, preserving the progressivity of the tax system and improving fairness, and to "align cadastral values with current market values.
Gentiloni: “It's not a failure”
"This is not a failure, this is a call for budgetary prudence and an invitation to make the best use of common European resources", said the European Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni at a press conference regarding the EU opinion on Italy's maneuver. “We by definition have a constructive relationship with the Italian Government, as with the governments of the Union in general,” he said. In the case of this budget law "our opinion says that it is not fully in line with European recommendations", translated "it is not a failure".
Next year "the Commission intends to open excessive deficit procedures based on the outcome of the 2023 budget data", underlined the vice-president of the community executive Valdis Dombrovskis remembering that the limit of the treaties is the deficit ceiling of 3% of GDP. “We will look at the Eurostat data which will arrive I believe in March. Those will be the data we will consider to make this decision at the end of June 2024,” explained EU Commissioner for Economy Paolo Gentiloni.
