After the decree on Imu and layoffs, the Letta government has to face three other fundamental chapters. The most imminent deadline is that of VAT: without a new intervention, from 21 July the third tax rate will automatically pass from 22 to 38%. The other two fields of intervention are work and pensions. To encourage youth employment and reduce it from at least 30 to XNUMX%, the government is preparing a series of measures to correct the reforms launched last year by former minister Elsa Fornero.
However, it is incumbent upon each measure the shell ghost: public expenditure cannot increase, because the Executive wants to be sure that Brussels will close at the end of the month the excessive deficit procedure towards our country. And for 2013 forecasts speak of a deficit already at 2,9% of GDP, one step away from the insurmountable threshold of 3% established in Maastricht. Much will therefore depend on the decision that the EU will take shortly on the matter golden rule, which according to a broad interpretation could make it possible to exclude from the calculation of the deficit, in addition to infrastructure investments, also productive ones such as funds for employment. If this were the case, Italy could set aside between 10 and 12 billion euros for work, if not more.
IVA
The VAT increase would be good for the public finances, but would invest around 70% of consumption, further depressing the real economy, with 26 businesses at risk of closure by 2013. According to the Confcommercio research office, the increase it would cost an average of 135 euros a year for each family. To prevent this from happening the Executive must find at least two billion.
WORK AND PENSIONS
The intervention should be divided into two phases. It aims primarily at restore flexibility to fixed-term contracts with a series of measures: reduction of the obligatory intervals between one fixed-term contract and another, which the Fornero reform had increased from 10 to 60 days for those lasting up to six months and from 20 to 90 days for longer ones (probably the new threshold is respectively 20 and 30); extension of the fixed-term contract for which the company is not required to indicate a reason, which today cannot exceed one year; suspension of the additional contribution of 1,4% that companies have to pay on flexible contracts and simplification of apprenticeships.
Secondly, the Government would like to introduce the so-called "generational relay”, facilitating the exit from work of the elderly in order to favor the hiring of the younger ones. The former could conclude their experience part-time (but in this case the State would have to pay part of their contributions), or agree to retire a few years early and with a lighter social security allowance.
Other measures should be added to all this: incentives for companies that hire young people, tax credits to support low-income employees, a revolution in employment centres, which could take advantage of the Youth Guarantee mechanism and funds, a European project for training and employment of the under 25s.
Labor Minister Enrico Giovannini will meet trade unions and business representatives on Wednesday. “It is a meeting to listen and to think together. Not a negotiation,” said the minister.
