There are still knots to untie in the maneuver. A meeting of the Council of Ministers is scheduled for this Wednesday morning. At the moment there is no agenda but it is not excluded that it could be an opportunity for the government, among other issues, to authorize the issue of confidence in the budget law. The works of the Commission in the Chamber are going slowly, after five days of sessions – during which almost only provisions and rejection of the texts of the oppositions were pending those of the government – a meeting of the Conference of Leaders of Groups is scheduled for this evening, which should define the timetable for the maneuver process in Parliament. The session in the Mappamodo room proceeds to the all-night voting. If tonight the majority manages, according to the opposition, to vote on the amendments presented by the government and political forces, tomorrow morning the mandate could be given to the rapporteurs. In this case, the prediction is that the maneuver will arrive in the classroom on Wednesday, December 21st, when the government must place its trust in the text, to be voted on the following day and continue on Friday, the 23rd, with the final approval of amended device. Senate approval could thus take place between December 27th and 28th, to avoid the risk of slipping into the provisional budget exercise from January 1st, 2023.
The Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, ensures that the deadlines are respected. Those in the opposition “evoke the provisional exercise, seek the provisional exercise, so it makes me smile that they evoke something they would like to see. As far as we are concerned, we are moving forward and I want to guarantee that there will be a budget law in the times when there has to be”, observes the Prime Minister.
What happens if the budget is not approved by the end of the year? “The provisional exercise of the budget may only be granted by law and for periods that do not exceed a total of four months”, provides for article 81 of the Constitution. Public expenditure is therefore allowed “by twelfths”, that is: for each month, a maximum of one twelfth of the headings entered in the chapters of the draft budget can be used. The last time in Italy the provisional exercise was used in 1988, during the brief government led by the exponent of DC Giovanni Goria.
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.
