(Finance) – “Confirming the reduction” of the tax burden, “the de-contribution for medium-low incomes” constitutes “the priority political objective” in the public finance plans that the government is preparing, and which will have to take into account the procedure for excessive deficit initiated by the European Commission against Italy. The Minister of Economy and Finance said thisGiancarlo Giorgetti, meeting the press at the end of the Ecofin Council meeting today in Luxembourg.
The excessive deficit procedure, announced on Wednesday for seven member states, including Italy, envisages a process that will begin this evening, with the Commission sending to the countries concerned proposals for “trajectories” for reducing the deficit in the coming years.
When asked if it will be confirmed reduction of the tax wedge, and with what resources, if the deficit must be reduced, Giorgetti replied: “We have a profile of commitments and deficit objectives that we have already declared. We are waiting precisely in these moments for the trajectory on which to work”, on the basis of the model that the Commission will send by this evening. “We will build the public finance framework – he underlined – keeping in mind that the priority political objective is to confirm the reduction, the de-contribution for medium-low incomes. This is a priority, then other things come.” And to those who asked if this would not lead to cuts in healthcare or education, the minister replied: “We have never cut anything in healthcare, we have only increased the allocation of funds” .
When asked if and when Italy will approve the ratification of the amendment to the treaty on the “State Rescue Fund” (as the European Stability Mechanism is called in Italy). “First of all, what I said yesterday is that the Italian Parliament is not in a position to approve, and does not approve” the ratification. “Then, what’s new is that yesterday, for the first time, Pierre Gramegna (the executive director of the ESM, ed.) made some reflections, evidently also taking into account the criticisms that we have always made, to try to change “the Mechanism” and take it towards another type, such as a European sovereign fund, for example in terms of defence, preventing individual national states from having to go into debt by spending at a national level; there has been a lot of resistance on this, especially from the Nordic countries “. So, he was asked, there isn’t much hope of ratifying the ESM soon? “In the short term – Giorgetti replied – it is impossible”. Which can then be done in the long term, “It depends on whether it changes, whether it improves: whether it changes nature as we have always asked. But the discussion has only just begun on this.”