(Finance) – Thousands of small businesses hit by the flood are experiencing crucial hours, in which it is decided whether to restart activities quickly or close permanently. To ensure the conditions to restart timely and adequate support is urgently needed. This is the appeal launched by the president of CNA Emilia-Romagna, Paolo Cavini, speaking in the Environment Commission in the Chamber on the flood decree, underlining that the estimates on the extent of the damage of 8.8 billion euros elaborated by the Region are still provisional and therefore destined to rise considering that the bill for damage to cars and vehicles, the loss of turnover of companies and the replenishment of company stocks and the recalibration of infrastructure works will have to be added.
Cavini he highlighted that more than a month after the catastrophe that overwhelmed an area where thousands of families and 130,000 businesses employing 443,000 workers insist, “the emergency is not over. Many families are still unable to return to their homes and many businesses are unable to resume their activities”. A “very uncertain and complicated situation – said Cavini – which requires immediate action”.
AND “essential to provide certainty to businesses, starting with effective and immediately accessible financial instruments to enable the recovery of activity and the reconstruction of what has been destroyed. For the damaged businesses, in particular the artisan and small ones, as well as all those productive realities that perform a social function of territorial protection (hairdressers, traders, restaurateurs, etc.) an approach is needed aimed, first of all, at removing the financial constraints and to allow companies to restart “at zero interest”.
Regarding the decree, Cavini indicated the need to extend the period of suspension of tax payments to include payments due at least until 30 November 2023. Furthermore, that the deadline for the payment of sums due during the suspension period should be moved from 20 November 2023 to 16 January 2024, in a single solution or also allow the payment in 12 monthly installments always starting from 16 January 2024.
On the credit issue, underlined that the strengthening of the Guarantee Fund for SMEs is positive but, in the conversion phase of the decree, it is a priority not to distort its purposes and characteristics as a strategic facilitation measure for SMEs. Furthermore, “it would also be appropriate to identify instruments in agreement with the European Union in order to overcome the limits established by the Community legislation on state aid. In this regard, the legislation on the de minimis regime should be updated by introducing automatic derogations in the presence of calamitous events”. The action of the Fund “could be accompanied by the contribution of Confidi, resulting in a greater complementarity between the public guarantee and the mutual guarantee”.
It is also necessary to extend the period of suspension of mortgage and loan payments to the whole of 2023 and to provide that companies must not be burdened with greater charges. Together with the suspension of social security and welfare contributions established by the decree, CNA has also provided for the simultaneous suspension of contributions to the Bilateral Solidarity Fund for crafts (FSBA), the only social shock absorber of reference for the craft sector. It would be desirable, however, to evaluate an installment for the payment of suspended payments to allow companies affected by the flood a concrete facilitation also in terms of liquidity management.
Finally Cavini positively judged the income support interventions even if he highlighted that the allowance for self-employed workers is much lower than that provided for employees.
Lastly, the President of CNA Emilia-Romagna underlined the need to insert a regulatory provision that exempts the company from responsibility for the loss of documentation, such as in the case of health and safety obligations, due to the flood. In many cases, information contained in paper documents or in hardware and software that ended up underwater is no longer usable.