On budget flexibility”Italy is not asking for anything new or incompatible with European rules” and “we hope that the response from the European Commission will come soon, so as to avoid an uncertainty that certainly does not help growth”. With these words the Minister of the Treasury, Pier Carlo Padoan, he replied today to the jab that arrived yesterday from the leader of the European People's Party, Manfred Weber, on the Italian request included in the Stability law and still awaiting a response from Brussels: "The Commission has given maximum flexibility in recent years - said the politician German –, now there are no more margins and the socialist commissioners like Moscovici also agree”. Yesterday, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi replied by saying that Italy "doesn't take lessons from any of its European friends".
But Padoan, who spoke today in Rome during a conference of the Aspen Institute Italia, underlined that "Italy's effort for reforms allows rightfully ask for more flexible fiscal policy management based on rules that exist and not that we are inventing. I would like to say this firmly – he added -. The approach of the Italian government's economic policy for this year and for the following ones does not change. The structural reform agenda and public investment make it possible to use flexibility, which I have never considered a weakening of discipline. Consolidation in Italy will continue in the coming years: the deficit and the debt will decrease, therefore there is absolute compatibility with the budgetary rules”.
In particular, in the maneuver Italy asks for the go-ahead from Brussels on three flexibility clauses: the government wants to raise the deficit-GDP ratio by 0,5% of GDP for reforms (8 billion), 0,4% for investments (6,5 billion) and one by 0,2% for the emergency migrants (3,3 billion).
On this last point, Renzi said in recent days that funds destined for Türkiye from Europe - a measure strongly desired by Germany to reduce the flow of migrants towards central Europe - create a precedent and show that it is necessary to support the countries most engaged in the management of migratory flows. in the document at the bottom, his request to separate from the calculation of the deficit in the context of the Stability and Growth Pact also "the entire amount of costs incurred by Italy since the beginning of the crisis in Libya". This is exactly what happened with the resources destined for Ankara. But the Ministry of Economy has denied late Wednesday evening: “In the statement included in the minutes of today's Coreper meeting there is no additional demand for flexibility“. In the press release, the MEF recalls that Italy has asked for the same measure used for Syria to be used for Libya. This event (the Libyan crisis, ed) “has in fact caused an exceptional flow of migrants and the consequent rescue, reception and recognition activities have generated expenses that must be treated in the national accounts in a similar way to the exceptional expenses incurred for the Syrian crisis. Since the Italian coasts have always been affected by the landing of migrants from North Africa, the thresholds that can be considered physiological were identified in the 2016 budget planning document and therefore evidence was provided of the increase in expenditure due to exceptional circumstances". Hence the request for 0,2% flexibility.
Today the president of the EU Commission, Jean Claude Junker has extended a soothing hand to Italy, after the tensions of the last few days, and recognized the willingness shown towards Turkey.
Wolfgang Schaeuble he was quick to reply firmly: "We won't let Italy blackmail us on Turkey, which doesn't want to pay its share," the finance minister said yesterday from Duesseldorf. On the other hand, the stiffening of German positions on the accounts of other European countries is a phenomenon that repeats itself regularly as the electoral appointments approach and this time too the rule seems to be confirmed: in fact, in March we vote for Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony-Anhalt and Baden-Wuerttenberg and in the polls the CDU of Merkel and Schaeuble has collapsed to its lowest level in years, at 34%.
(Text updated February 4, 2016 at 13,04 pm)
