The legal deadline is April 10, but coinciding with the Easter holidays, the Economic and Financial Document (Def) will be postponed to the Council of Ministers scheduled for next Tuesday. It is the first time that the Meloni government ventures to define the macroeconomic framework, comprising estimates of growth, debt and inflation for this year and public finance objectives until 2026. The framework may be better than forecasts. Compared to the +0.6% growth indicated in the Def Update Note (Nadef) at the end of September, in fact, the OECD recently confirmed the estimate (increasing it to +1% in 2024), while the Commission European retouched to +0.8%. The government should raise it to +0.9%. With regard to inflation, the OECD records a drop from 8.7% in 2022 to 6.7% this year, to 2.5% in 2024. On debt, however, Istat released on Wednesday the data for the fourth quarter of 2022 for general government (-5.6%), registering a deterioration of 0.7% compared to the same period of 2021, but an improvement of 0.5 percentage points in the primary balance.
In this context, the government is working to focus on three major spending items and meet expenditures. First, given the continuation of the war in Ukraine, resources to be allocated to the military sector. According to the Chamber’s Research Service, in the last budget law, 27.7 billion have already been authorized for this year, 1.8 billion more than the previous year. In addition, 1.57 billion were allocated to international missions. Values that, globally, correspond to around 1.38% of GDP. The government is committed to reaching the 2% agreed with NATO almost ten years ago, but Defense Minister Guido Crosetto admitted that “it will not be easy” with the current budgetary restrictions. In any case, the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, has reaffirmed his commitment in recent weeks: “We have never made a secret of wanting to increase military spending”; and, therefore, an intervention in this sense is expected in Def.
The other major chapter is that of social security, with expenses destined to grow, according to Nadef, from 297.3 billion in 2022 to 320.8 in 2023. The implementation of Cota 41, which would cost 9 billion a year when it is in full effect functioning, does not seem to lack little. long-term option, but it also remains to be seen what will happen next year, after the exhaustion of Quota 103 at the end of December. It is no coincidence that the unions are already pressing for open confrontation. Finally, the spending review, according to the approach linked to the Pnrr, should generate savings of BRL 3.56 billion by 2025. The cuts for resource recovery should be specified in Def. Also in the Pnrr there is a variable that is being carefully observed, and it is the boost to GDP of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan which, amidst delays, changes in governance and the third installment still on hold in Brussels, could be more contained than expected. than expected. A few days ago, the Court of Auditors certified the slow implementation of the plan at the end of the year, the level of accumulated expenditure should be almost 15 billion less than the initial financial framework defined by the Draghi government.
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.
