ROMA (ITALPRESS) – “With a particularly complex international economic framework and with the geopolitical tensions that we continue to live, which will affect, as already are affecting, on growth, on energy costs, on the competitiveness of enterprises, on the purchasing power of families, a moment not easy where there should be less room for controversy, and more space for a concrete comparison on the great strategic issues that concern Italy”. Thus the President of the Council, Giorgia Meloni, responding to the premier time in the Senate.
“Among the big issues to deal with is that of energy. The government has worked on us from the beginning, by the summer will be approved the proxy law, will be adopted the implementing decrees for the legislative framework necessary for the recovery for the production of nuclear energy in Italy”, he added. “A number of measures have been taken to reduce an energy dependence that becomes increasingly dangerous,” Meloni said.
“As for the proposal of a directing booth” to address the country’s strategic priorities “I would also be available, but I remember that when we tried to make proposals in this sense the response of the vast part of the opposition was not available.”.
“I believe that the novelty of this government was not simply the fact that it had stability. I have always said that stability is necessary because it allows to realize a vision”, he explained. “Economically what does the government intend to do? To continue a strategy that we have put in the field that was made on the economic level substantially by three fundamental choices: on the one hand to strengthen the purchasing power, on the other to encourage the companies that they assumed and that invested and in addition the choice, that is also economic, to support the families and the birth”.
“The government’s priorities include the home plan, which I consider as an economic measure, the extension of the single half-day Zes and we want to strengthen the mechanisms to extend pension funds in the Italian economy. Something does not work if there are 260 billion that are collected by the Italians of which only 40 are invested in Italy”, the premier confirmed.
On the Pnrr “to date Italy has cashed 153 billion and will be liquidated the ninth rata in the coming weeks. At 31 March the certified expenditure amounted to 117 billion, equal to 76% of the total. I think we did a good job.”.
“The theme of wages is very serious and is a theme that has been told with many slogans and different fake news. We have heard and will suffer many other times, that in Italy wages have lost 7 points since 2021. Well, only that who supports it is the same that ruled between 2021 and 2022 when inflation exploded, real wages lost over 8 and a half points, that is when this decline accumulated. We started from here, we worked and wages gradually resumed to grow more than inflation.” “It means that, although slowly, families are recovering part of the purchasing power. We did not turn on the other side, we gave answers to this issue that we considered a priority, working on two fronts, starting from cutting the cost of work,” he added.
“We believe that wages should be increased by strengthening bargaining, because that’s where workers’ rights are defended and that they are able to do sector by sector. With the last work decree we have established that they can access the incentives for recruitment only the enterprises that apply a fair wage, where it is meant the overall economic treatment enshrined in the national collective agreements that are stipulated by the most representative trade unions and employers’ organizations”. “It is a different way from that of the minimum wage proposed by the oppositions that, however, as the case of Puglia where the minimum wage has been applied, it risks becoming a lower threshold rather than an extra protection. No one thinks that the problem is solved, we know that wages in Italy are still too low but we continue to work on this road to grow wages,” he concluded.
“This government has shown that the Mezzogiorno was not a problem to solve, but if anything an opportunity, a great opportunity to grasp, where for many years, the approach had been focused on subsidies. We preferred to focus our attention on investment, work, infrastructure, simplification. The single Zes – he added – is the most concrete example of this strategy: we have reduced bureaucratic times, we have accelerated the authorizations, given the companies clear rules. The result is that, in two years, they have been authorised and partly supported, with tax credits, more than 1,300 investments for a total turnover of about 55 billion and significant relapses in employment terms.”.
“We often say that Italy is united and that we would like to divide it, but I don’t think that we found an Italy that had the same conditions on all the national territory,” Meloni said.
“On the one hand, we are accused of making austerity and on the other, redeemed for the increase in the debt-Pil ratio. We have not made austerity policy, we have increased wages, cut taxes, supported investments, we have strengthened lower pensions. In spite of this work, we could also get out of the infringement procedure if we had not had to deal with hundreds of billions burned in electoral measures without control. The debt-Pil ratio grows only thanks to the superbonus: 174 billion, four times as predicted. In 2027 we will finish paying the superbonus, when our mandate is over,” he added.
– photo IPA Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
