In terms of spending reviews “significant corrective actions” have been taken since 2008, including one third on the spending side and two thirds on tax increases, “for a total of 5% of GDP”. Thus the Minister for Relations with Parliament, Piero Giarda, spoke at a meeting organized by the British Embassy in Rome to discuss the cuts in public spending decided by the Monti government. For achieve the goal of structurally balanced budget in 2013, the executive put in place “an uninterrupted succession of measurements both on the revenue side and on the expenditure side, for a sum that can be estimated of about 12 billion euros'' insisted Giarda, perhaps in response to the provocations launched by journalist Gian Antonio Stella in his introduction to the debate.
“Italian bureaucracy,” Stella said, “costs 70 billion euros a year,” according to Confindustria data. An example? The Secretary General of the Sicily Regional Assembly earns more than the Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki Moon. In short, in comparison with other European countries, Italy does not make a good impression: "The cost of the institutions is too high", continued the journalist ": the per capita cost of Parliament is 26 euros in Italy against 13 in the United Kingdom“. In fact, Giarda retorted, more needs to be done: "there are clearly useless public works" and waste that needs to be eliminated.
The meeting then took the floor British Deputy Economy Minister Danny Alexander, who complimented the Minister for approving the spending review. “When we came into office in 2010, the UK's deficit problem required large-scale reforms. For this we have created an independent Budget Responsibility body, so that the government could not ignore the harsh reality".
Ma the major contributions have come from the people: “We received 100 ideas by citizens and public bodies on how to do more with less. It is essential for a government that wants to carry out a spending review to commit itself to making it an open and transparent process”. And also the minister Garden he expressed his approval of it: “The first custodian of public waste should be the citizen”. Lastly, the British deputy minister didn't want to spare a dig at Europe: "Even the EU must review spending," he concluded.
