The Renzi government has done many good things and above all it shows the will to continue the work of rehabilitation and modernization of the country. Perhaps for the first time, after many years, there is a return to discussing how to accelerate development instead of only thinking about ward off the blows of the crisis. Many things remain to be done. Above all, it is not enough to make good laws (and it is difficult) one must follow their implementation in daily practice.
In this context, political stability is a crucial factor in maintaining the trust that is beginning to show in Italy today. On the other hand, the reappearance of political instability would lead to a withering of the first shoots of recovery, thwarting the opportunity offered by a very propitious international framework. This in summary, the message that the president of Assonime Maurizio Sella, articulated clearly at the annual meeting of his association. A non-ideological message, as is the tradition of an association between SPAs which plays an important technical role both with respect to the Italian Government and Parliament and with respect to the European authorities.
In this latter regard, Sella leaves no room for ambiguity about Europe and the Euro, stating that there is no future outside the European construction but that this suffers from serious shortcomings, in particular due to the lack of a real budget community, which must be filled as soon as possible. Sella didn't spare a criticism of the countries that have an excessive trade balance surplus and who persist in not adopting policies to expand domestic demand. Particularly interesting are the technical suggestions on matters of great importance for the modernization of the production system and more generally of the entire country.
In general, it is necessary to free the economy from the excess of regulatory constraints and this can be done starting from a profound reform of the PA (Minister Madia's bill under discussion in Parliament is considered very positive). The PA must abandon formalistic logic and focus heavily on results, rewarding merit and professional excellence. It's not just a matter of saving by cutting spending, but of organizing a public administration at the service of citizens and not just a prisoner of "procedures". Corruption is an endemic disease of our system both due to the lack of reform of the PA and to the excessive intrusiveness of politicians in management also through a myriad of controlled companies, especially at the local level, which should be rationalized and in many cases returned to the market . Two risks are considered by international investors to be particularly serious: the regulatory one, ie the instability of the rules governing relations between the public and the private sector, especially in the service sector, and the judicial one which has been talked about so many times.
In this second case, Assonime introduces two new elements of concern: the first concerns the lack of consideration by the judges of the models developed by the companies to face the risks, and the second concerns the new legislation on the class action which risks making companies in a situation of extreme uncertainty. Sella limits himself to hoping that the Senate will modify the legislation approved by the Chamber, but perhaps it is worth emphasizing that bringing the Class Action back into the European framework does not mean curtailing the rights of consumers or citizens, but simply not falling into the trap of a excessive role of the judiciary in intervening in all matters of economic policy such as pensions or public services which must be regulated on the basis of political criteria.
If citizens are not satisfied with the commuter train service or the pension system, they will evaluate the various proposals on the subject put forward by the political forces and then decide by voting who to administer, without falling into the false illusion of an independent judiciary which, with its decisions would protect the rights of citizens. In fact, in the case of pensions or many public services, the sentences leave uncovered the side of who must cover any higher public expenditure and say nothing about who should bear the burden of any higher taxes. Even for companies with the new law, the amount of any compensation would remain undetermined for a long time with disastrous consequences on the significance of company financial statements.
The Assonime report is full of technical ideas of great interest. It would be desirable that our politicians, instead of always fighting over issues of alignment, would inaugurate a way of discussing concrete proposals, their feasibility, being very careful not to throw off solutions which, in their apparent simplicity, would then end up leading to opposite results to those desired.
