“Everyone here has said they agree on the tax wedge cut, I’m happy. On Monday I expect this thing to be done ». Carlo Bonomi listened to the party leaders speak on the stage of the Young Entrepreneurs conference in Rapallo, on Friday Giorgia Meloni and Antonio Tajani, yesterday Enrico Letta, Giuseppe Conte, Matteo Salvini and Matteo Renzi. Everyone gave the go-ahead for an intervention on the tax wedge in the next budget law. A measure that “would put 1,223 euros a year more in the pockets of Italians,” said the president of Confindustria, to be allocated for two thirds to workers.
Worrying numbers
“It is the hour of truth, of transparency, of coherence,” he began. Also because the numbers are worrying: «when the Confindustria Study Center revised downwards, from 4 to 2%, this year’s growth defined us as catastrophists. Now the estimates of the Def, the Bank of Italy, the IMF are in line with ours. Without the reforms, the country is at a standstill ». There is a global slowdown, of course, but «it is asymmetrical. The US is slowing down less than Europe and in the EU Italy and Germany are slowing down more ». The signs were already there since last autumn, Bonomi recalled, after “the excellent rebound” following the loss of GDP in 2020. “The North Star of the budget law should have been growth, but it wasn’t like that” . Citizenship income, which cost 20 billion and will cost another 10 billion, is fine for Bonomi as an instrument to fight poverty but does not work as an active labor policy; quota 100, which will cost 30 billion between now and 2028, which has not even had a substitute effect between retirees and new hires “we are at 0.4”. And then the building bonuses «the distorted effects are in the newspapers, scams». Measures that have removed resources from interventions to make companies more competitive, such as Industry 4.0 and the patent box.
We need a more modern and inclusive country
It is out of “seriousness” to “stay close to its government” but also to have a “competitive reformism” that Confindustria, Bonomi said, “held firm on sanctions, unlike our colleagues in Germany”. The country must be made more modern and inclusive, answers to inequalities must be given. With the PNRR «the resources are there to carry out the reforms, there are no more excuses. The government must move forward, stability is needed and not be hostage to electoral flags ”. Of growth, cutting the tax wedge, containment of the price of energy, from the price cap to a regulated platform at European level, Bonomi spoke individually face to face with political leaders, with confidential meetings (Conte was on video connection). Problems aggravated by the war. The president of Confindustria last Monday and Tuesday was in Ukraine, the first and only non-political to have met Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelensky and the main ministers of his government. “It is not up to Confindustria to decide on military support for Ukraine or sanctions on Russia, it is the task of politics. We have the task of telling Ukrainians in a concrete way that there are Italian companies. It is our contribution to the peace that will come, because we share the values for which they fight, freedom and democracy “, said Bonomi who announced his commitment to build a school in Borodjanka for displaced children and thanked Mario Draghi and Sergio Mattarella for the “clear and lofty words they have spent”.
The problem of public debt and “rain” bonuses
We must react to the mistakes of the past, which led to an increase of 800 billion in public debt from 2010 to 2021. Public spending has doubled but, said Bonomi, the poor have risen from 2.1 million in 2008 to 5.6 million of 2021. Reason? The bonuses, the one-offs, which can also be added: “they go to 50% of the population, instead of concentrating on that 10% that needs it”. On the minimum wage, Confindustria’s contracts are well above the 9 euros indicated in the proposals in Parliament. And it is not Confindustria that does not renew contracts: 242,420 people await them, compared to 3.4 from the services and 2.8 from the Public Administration. under 40 on the board of directors: «we must strongly support it, if there are no measures, the head in this country does not change. We were the first, like Confindustria, to include an under 40 in the renewal of the Sole 24 Ore board »concluded Bonomi.