The government will be able to repay by 2012 between 20 and 30 billion in commercial credits of companies with respect to the PA. Four ministerial decrees agreed with the associations of banks and companies are ready, which will finally allow liquidity to be restored to Italian companies. This was declared by the Prime Minister, Mario Monti: "We are able to achieve a progressive reduction of the debt: 20-30 billion already in the course of this year". Also present at the press conference were his Deputy for Economy Vittorio Grilli and the Minister of Development Corrado Passera who said he was satisfied "with the concrete and partly unexpected response" to the problem of the PA's debts.
But, as Minister Passera recalled, the structural and definitive solution to the problem is the reception of the European Union directive – which provides that PA payments are made within 60 days. The premier thus announced that the “government intends to transpose the directive on late payments by the end of 2012, ahead of the EU deadline” set for March 2013. So Italy is keeping the commitments made with the EU.
However, there are no precise numbers on how many payments the public administration owes to businesses. "For Confindustria“, explained Deputy Minister Grilli, “there are 70 billion, we do not have a certain number but we know that most of the debts are at a local and not central level”.
Grilli then specified that, according to the agreed decrees, as an alternative to the banking channel, companies will be able to request the offsetting of credits and debits entered in the register of taxes and contributions. But only "as long as registered by April 30, 2011". Contribution debts can therefore also be compensated. The four decrees define the procedures with which companies will be able to have their credits certified by the debtor administrations. With the certification, companies will be able to have the sums advanced from the banks at a discount.
Different rules will be introduced for the commissioned PAs.
