The bomb that threatened to blow up the budgets of the Regions has been defused. "We have launched a decree law with a provision that clarifies the issue relating to the accounting of past debts of the Regions, allowing the situation to be completely regularized". This was announced by the Undersecretary of the Prime Minister, Claudio De Vincenti, in the press conference at the end of the Council of Ministers.
The difficulties had started after a ruling by the Constitutional Court. Last June, the Consulta had rejected a budgetary practice which some Regions, such as Piedmont, had resorted to. The problem concerned the accounting method of the funds advanced by the government to the Regions to pay (through loans taken out with the Treasury) the outstanding debts with suppliers. Those same resources, in some cases, were also used to fuel current expenditure and this - according to the constitutional judges - was not legitimate.
In the light of the ruling of the Consulta, the Court of Auditors has certified a deficit of Piedmont close to 6 billion euros. The case broke out due to lack of clarity on the application of the law, according to the Regions. After two postponements, the Government resolved the situation with a decree that does not allocate additional funds to the Regions involved in plans to recover from maxi deficits, but allows them to spread the debts over 30 years.
De Vincenti also announced that “the Council of Ministers has approved in definitive examination the two legislative decrees concerning the methods of resolving possible banking crises. In this way we are perfectly aligned with the European Union. The observations of the parliamentary commissions were taken into account in the final version".
