M5S and Lega, having filed the round of nominations for the presidents of the Chamber and Senate, are working to define a possible common outline - a few essential points - on which to converge to form the new government. Considering that it will not be a legislature government but that it will have a life expectancy of six months to a year ahead of it and therefore will not have sufficient time to enact demanding measures such as the flat tax and the basic income, attention is focused on a few essential points that include the electoral law and that you can read here.
What the new government will surely face, whoever it will be led by, are budgetary constraints and the stakes of European rules. As soon as he takes office - consultations begin on 3 April with the prospect of having an executive in office by May-June - the government will have to launch the so-called “3,5 billion maneuver to correct the 2018 deficit. Then he will have to finalize the Economic and Financial Document (Def): the Gentiloni government, in fact, will limit itself to photographing the new growth estimates and will limit its horizon to 2018 without giving indications to Brussels on the next year. In doing so, he will leave the new executive a free hand to fix the numbers, targets and ways to reach them in the 2019 horizon.
The most pressing commitment will first of all be the issue of safeguard clauses and the potential increase in VAT. Defusing the increase in VAT rates – intended to guarantee the achievement of budget objectives – is a costly objective 12,5 billion but on which all the political forces (and the Renzi and Gentiloni governments themselves during their mandate) agreed. It will then be necessary to finance the second tranche of increases in public employment (2 billion) and find 5 billion for non-deferrable expenses (missions abroad, transfers to institutions and so on). In practice, almost 20 billion are at stake, a maneuver to be found immediately: the alternative would be to increase the deficit, but Italy has agreed with Brussels to drop to 0,9% and breaking through this threshold would open a tough and dangerous clash with the EU Commission.
