The government sets the bar of the new decree with aid to businesses and families against the rise in electricity and gas at 13.6 billion, which aims to put together with the August tax surplus (6.2 billion), with the re-accounting of the extra profits of the energy companies, as anticipated on Friday by this newspaper, and with further recoveries in the folds of the budget, going to fish out any unused funds. This is the framework contained in the Report with which the government will present itself next week in Parliament to obtain, by an absolute majority, the green light for the use of these resources. With the aim of lightening the impact of the increase in the prices of energy products, as well as extending the sterilization of expensive fuels (guaranteed, with the latest Mite-Mef decree, until next 5 October). Not before having closed, however, the game on the conversion of the bis aid decree, whose path, squeezed between the stakes of the Economy, which does not want to loosen the purse strings, and the pressing of the parties intending, on the contrary, to widen the meshes of the measure, appears bumpy at the moment.
The assumptions on the table
The government, therefore, is expected to have a double junction that is anything but easy and in the meantime it is looking for a difficult square on the new aid-ter decree, whose definitive perimeter is still being discussed. A first point of the possible menu of the provision is represented by the extension of the tax credits for the insured companies for now until 30 September and whose renewal, even for the last quarter, would cost at current prices, according to the estimates of the technicians, approximately 6.8 billion. Which include the extension of the subsidy not only for energy and gas eaters, but also for those companies that, while not falling into the aforementioned categories, have undergone a certain level of increases in energy costs.
On the table, then, there would also be the hypothesis of raising the Isee ceiling for access to the social bonus from the current 12 thousand euros to 15 thousand euros in order to expand the audience of beneficiaries of the discount provided in the bill for families in conditions of hardship. economic and physical. The audience has already been enlarged in recent months with the Ukraine decree which had already foreseen an increase up to the end of 2022 compared to the 8,265 euros previously set to obtain the subsidy. And it is clear that a further step would result in a need higher than that estimated so far.
Alongside this, we would also be considering the possibility of a return on the installment of invoices which, for families, expired at the end of June and which provided for the possibility of payment plans in 10 installments against an advance mechanism of one billion. on the electrical supply chain. Under consideration there would be a range of 4-7 months for deferrals, which could also include micro-enterprises, but the conditional it is a must because the definitive line around the measures will be drawn only when the available dowry is defined. In the balance, moreover, there is the replica of the discounted cig, the cost of which could rise if it were decided to go beyond the five sectors (steel, wood, ceramics, automotive, agro-industry) for which the shock absorber expired at the end of May..
The double junction in Parliament
The government is therefore trying to compose the menu of the new decree. Which will probably arrive on the CDM table between Thursday and next Friday, only after Parliament has approved the Report signed by the Minister of the Economy, Daniele Franco, and the aid decree bis. And as long as everything goes smoothly. Also because in recent days there has been no lack of friction around the corrective measures requested by the political forces on the provision in the process of conversion, starting with those on the superbonus. The costs of which, we read in the same document that will go to the vote of the Chambers next week, have subtracted space from the funds to be allocated to new aid for families and businesses against expensive energy: “To date, expenditure on building bonuses has already exceeded forecasts of 1.3 billion (in 2022 alone), with an increase in the public budget ”.