Tonight's summit between the prime minister and majority leaders promises to be full of content. A moment of broad-spectrum synthesis between the Government and political forces, in which the Alfano-Bersani-Casini trio will put various recipes on the table, from the hottest issues such as the financing of parties to the structure of the new labor reform, ending with corruption .
Some points in common: relatively to party funding, the majority is united in reiterating that one must not give in to the base instincts of populism and anti-politics. Canceling funding would be a "dramatic mistake", as underlined in the report, signed by the three secretaries, on the bill on transparency of budgets.
If public funding cannot be questioned - since it constitutes a source of guarantee and democratic participation - the new law could constitute a key point on which to "lever to reform the parties”. The text approved by ABC proposes the introduction of a Designated commission to supervise the budgets of the political forces, while strong penalties (equal to three times the extent of the offence) would act as a deterrent. As far as transparency is concerned, the threshold beyond which the parties must declare the sources of funding would be lowered from fifty thousand to five thousand euros. The accounts will also be published on the internet.
On the growth the political forces are aware of the current difficulty and will go to the summit with pro-growth proposals a no cost for the state coffers. Monti will preview the data from Economics and finance document, which will give more certain outlines to the estimates of the economic trend. So far the most pessimistic forecasts of the International Monetary Fund announce a drop of 2,2% in 2012. It will be essential to unlock the public administration debts towards companies, the amount of which - according to Confindustria - is now around one hundred billion euros. A part of the funds (we are talking about 70%) should be mobilized by means of a ABI-Government-business agreement that this could be signed Thursday.
Even the loosening of the internal stability pact – according to the leader of the Democratic Party – it could partially counteract the recessionary picture. But don't dream: the slowdown can at best be contained to reduce the risk of the economy going downhill. In addition, any "treasure" deriving from savings or from fight against evasion it cannot be spent on lowering the tax burden: reforms can only be done at zero cost and without betting on revenues that are not yet quantifiable. The ex-radical deputy does not think so Daniel Capezzone, who even hopes for one cancellation of the Imu in 2013. The Democratic Secretary is also likely to put pressure on the chapter liberalizations, watered down by the lobbying counter-reform in the parliamentary drafting phase of the decree law.
When the representatives of the “strange majority” will come to discuss about work. The unitary intention of the parties could crack: the Pdl will flank the Confindustria requests on economic layoffs. There seems to have been a phone call between Monti and Emma Marcegaglia in which the business representative allegedly put pressure on the prime minister to bring the balance back into balance, especially as regards the entry flexibility.
Regarding the misunderstanding about disciplinary dismissals, Pdl and Pd have reported that they want to cancel the amendment to the original law text which has aroused strong protests in the business world, since the new wording would have increased the margins of discretion of judges in these types of assignment of the employment relationship. The Democratic Party has an interest in dismissing the job issue soon, and Bersani could grant greater gradualness to the implementation of the new rules on entry flexibility and VAT numbers, on which the rapporteur on the bill Tiziano Treu is already working. The agreement has the potential to close the game to ratify the transition of government policy to the real phase-two: that of growth.
In this sense, Monti received a precious assist from the Emir of Qatar, which classified the corruption as a primary obstacle to the entry of foreign capital into Italy. On the subject, the Minister of Justice Severino met the parties this morning, noting a collaborative atmosphere: the amendment to the anti-corruption bill will be filed today, after which the parliamentary debate will begin.
Pier Luigi Bersani will also bring the case to the table-exodus: “It is not possible for a worker to lose his job, have no pension and not benefit from a social shock absorber. We had indicated another path on pensions”.
