(Finance) – “The world economy is slowing down, but the good thing is that we have avoided a recession.” This is what the European Commissioner for Economy, Paolo Gentiloni at the meeting of Confindustria Vicenza. “Unfortunately – he added – it had not grown so little for 20 years. The slowdown is not uniform in all countries: the USA is doing quite well, the Asian countries excluding China are doing very well. According to our economic forecasts, the EU tells us that the economy will grow by 0.8 percent this year and 2 percent next year. After two extraordinary years – let’s not forget that in 2022 we had spectacular growth in Europe and also in Italy, which has grown more than China – the good thing is that we have avoided a recession and the job market is holding up.” Gentiloni then observed that there is other good news: “some large countries are already starting to see a (positive) trend reversal, including Germany”.
“The way we are addressing the problem of Stability pact is to have different and more credible debt reduction methods country by country – said Gentiloni –. So I think a reasonable thing that allows you to make more investments can be done. Unfortunately, in politics reasonable things are not always possible. We’re trying.”
Then addressing the issues of international crises, the Commissioner noted that the oil and gas outlook is “not particularly alarming”. This tells us that the crisis in Israel has not created any particular upheavals”, he said, adding immediately afterwards that however “we must be careful of a possible escalation and then the current prices of oil and gas compared to two years ago are higher and there pose competitiveness problems. So there is no dramatic outlook on energy, but there is little to be confident about.”
The watchwords for Gentiloni are “teamwork. Work together”. “The way to protect Italy’s interest in Europe is to team up and play in advance. All entities are called to work together. This – insisted the EU Commissioner – must be done soon. And I won’t tell the government this current but in general, because a piece of our future is decided in Europe. We must anticipate decisions and not complain after they are taken.”
Gentiloni then recalled that the Pnrr is an opportunity that will never be repeated. “We (as the EU Commission) have disbursed 175 billion so far, and of these 85 billion have been disbursed to Italy. The mission that we should all have, Confindustria, the world of work, Regions, Municipalities, as well as the Government and European institutions, it’s seeing – concluded Gentiloni – where to best use these resources because it won’t happen to us again, it’s an opportunity that happens to us today”.