Returning to Maastricht to overcome the Fiscal compact: it is the political exchange that the former prime minister and secretary of the Democratic Party, Matteo Renzi, proposes to the European Union to support economic growth without breaking the public accounts and this is what we read in his book " After you. Because 'Italy doesn't stop” which will be in bookstores from Wednesday.
Instead of the rigid constraints of the Fiscal compact, negotiated by the Berlusconi and Monti governments, the secretary of the Democratic Party proposes a different path of growth and recovery based on a public deficit of 2,9% of GDP for five years. If the exchange suggested by Renzi were accepted by the European partners, Italy would have "at least 30 billion euros available over the next five years to reduce the tax burden and reshape growth strategies".
It would be a substantial sum with which Renzi intends to wage the electoral battle to cut taxes and thus face the challenge of the flat tax launched by Silvio Berlusconi and that of Beppe Grillo's basic income.
Naturally, it will be necessary to see which government will take charge of it and whether, after the elections, Brussels will accept Renzian's proposals. However, in the intentions of the secretary of the Democratic Party, it will not be a one-way exchange. To convince the European Union, Renzi is making a commitment to reduce the public debt through an operation on assets being prepared by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and the Ministry of the Economy and Finance, probably through the establishment of a fund that collects Treasury movable and immovable assets to be valued and placed on the market.
Whatever the fate of Renzi's recipe, it would be a big step forward for Italian politics if, instead of the sterile debate on post-electoral alliances, the confrontation between political forces finally concentrated on the contents and in particular on the economic policy to be put in place to support growth but also to reduce social inequalities, which in Italy as in the rest of the West fuel populist and sovereign drifts.
