It’s a race against time to find the right balance in amending the budget law and continuing the process to pass the move in time. Yesterday the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, reiterated her will to proceed quickly to the leaders of the majority party groups gathered at Palazzo Chigi, opening up the possibility of a control room to resolve the last knots of the text. But tensions remain. Just to give an example, today the League, with the Undersecretary of Labor Claudio Durigon, closes the possibility of increasing pensions to 600 euros as Forza Italia would like.
More generally, in the next few days it will be necessary to reduce the more than 3,000 amendments presented to the Chamber, 617 of which by the majority. The objective is to arrive at around 400 ‘flagged’ proposals for amendments, on which the Government will pronounce and on which the work of the Budget Committee will concentrate. Majority parties will likely have more than €400 million available to cover their changes. A knot to untie concerns precisely pensions. Increasing the minimums to 600 euros per month – as requested by Forza Italia – is possible but “not immediately” and “if there are no resources in this budget we will do it during the legislature”, says Durigon, but the Azzurri parliamentarians seem willing to give battle on point.
On the other hand, the increase in cash to 5,000 euros seems destined to materialize. The ruling coalition would also be reassured on this point by the decision of the EU Council which yesterday agreed its position on an anti-money laundering regulation, which sets a maximum limit of 10,000 euros for cash payments across the EU. “Well, Europe also confirms the freedom to use money as you wish, even doubling the ceiling for using cash provided by the Italian government from 5 to 10 thousand euros. Claims and criticism in silence today?”, exults the leader of Matteo Salvini League, and with it many FdI deputies. However, the other node of the 60 threshold remains, beyond which it is mandatory for merchants to accept electronic payments, on which the result of the dialogue with the European Commission also weighs.
Still in Brussels, “we are working on the Italian budget law and we will give an opinion next week”, announces the EU commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, underlining that “I think the principles are quite clear, in the sense that just read the Pnrr objectives and the annual recommendations we make to several countries, including Italy, to know that for us both electronic invoicing and the fight against tax evasion are major priorities.” But “I don’t think the European Commission should sound alarms We are analyzing the proposals and will issue an opinion”, concludes the former prime minister.
Source: IL Tempo
Emma Fitzgerald is an accomplished political journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in political science and international relations, she has a deep understanding of the political landscape and the forces that shape it.
