“We will present the spending review to the Chambers. Commissioner Carlo Cottarelli has offered us a list, but it will be up to us to decide where we want to intervene and where not ”. Thus Prime Minister Matteo Renzi during a report to the Chamber on the meetings that took place in Europe in view of the next European Council. As for the individual cuts to come, underlined the Prime Minister, "we still have a wide margin" and the Government will reveal its decisions "in parliamentary offices, as it should be, after a political analysis".
TAX AND JUSTICE
Before the summer, however, the Executive will also have to tackle other crucial chapters: the tax and justice reforms, Renzi explains, are "a priority" to be put in the pipeline by July, because "it is not the fault of a European Commissioner if we are the last in civil justice: the EU data are not the random numbers of the ugly and wicked witch, they are the data of our weakness”.
YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
As for the issue of work, “how can we be credible in asking for a change in the rules of the game in Europe when our numbers on youth unemployment cry out for revenge? – continues the Premier – Changes to labor rules are not a matter of pleasure. In these 20 years it has been thought of creating work by decree and it has failed, it has been thought of restoring guarantees to a generation through the multiplication of rules and it has failed again. The result is that today youth unemployment is at an atrocious level”. Hence the importance of the reform of the labor market, for which "I hope the instrument of delegation has been appreciated". On that occasion it will be possible to “discuss social safety nets, minimum wages, universal unemployment benefits, but also how we simultaneously allow entrepreneurs to hire without bureaucratic difficulties. This question must be resolved, not because Europe is asking us to, but because 42% of young unemployed people are asking for it”.
INSTITUTIONAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS
As far as the constitutional and institutional reforms are concerned, they are the ones “that most affected the European partners – claims the Premier –, because they are the sign that Italy is ready to play its part in the ongoing process of change. How can we be credible in asking for another Europe if for 30 years the discussion on bicameralism has always been the same? How can we ask Europe to pay more attention to stability if our electoral system does not guarantee stability? How can we ask Europe to overcome the Euro-bureaucracy if we do not address the problems of the Public Administration?”.
DIGITAL AGENDA
Lastly, during the semester of Italy's presidency of the EU, our country will organize an “ad hoc appointment on the digital agenda – concludes Renzi -. It will be important to use the semester as an opportunity for specific and sectoral insights and for Italy it will mean using the semester also by posing some innovative challenges that can be transversal opportunities, therefore we have agreed to organize an appointment on the digital agenda in October that involves all 28 the EU countries. Part of the competitiveness of the system derives from investments in this sector and from the ability of political forces and governments to translate it into concrete actions. We discussed this with Hollande and Merkel”.
