«Disappointment» for the approved rules and for the absence of «structural measures». This is the opinion of Confindustria the day after the government passed the energy decree. “In the face of the urgent structural measures requested from the Government on energy prices, Confindustria expresses strong perplexity, as well as disappointment”, he explains in a press release in which the measures are detailed, criticizing in particular “the unavailability of a structural cut in excise duties on fuels », The non-immediate applicability of the payment in installments of bills for businesses and the levying of extra-profits on operators while« a national ceiling on the price of gas would have been quite the opposite ».
A structural cut in excise duties was needed
According to Confindustria, the unavailability of a structural cut in the excise duties on fuels leads to a filing for just 30 days of a few hundredths of excise duty per liter: “Of course, it is a renewable measure over time, but the effect on the final consumer price – warns the note – is well below the current increases. We cannot continue to pay excise duties on the Suez crisis of 1956 or on the reconstruction of the Florence flood of 1966 to limit ourselves to a few examples from a long list ». Confindustria takes the example of Portugal which has just asked the EU to reduce the VAT rate from 23% to 13 percent.
The mechanism for paying bills in installments was rejected
The index is then focused on the mechanism for paying bills in installments for businesses “for the months of May and June only” which “is accompanied by public guarantees on loans taken out to meet the higher costs of businesses”. This is – explained by Confindustria – “a mechanism that on the one hand is not immediately applicable, on the other it continues to flood the national system with measures that are badly reconciled with the logic of monthly flows, but above all generate debt for operators without affecting the real problem of the cost of energy for the industrial sector that this provision does not address ». The industrialists do not like “the calculation of the so-called extra-profits of operators who import and carry out energy trading operations”. “As illustrated yesterday in the press conference, that is on the basis of presumptive VAT indices, since it is not yet detailed, it exposes itself again and objectively to the risk of constitutional challenges”, affirms the confederation of industrialists.
Better a national ceiling on the price of gas
Confindustria indicates which measure would have been more effective than those adopted: “It would have been quite the opposite – the note clarifies – a national ceiling on the price of gas achieved, instead, on the basis of a transparency operation on the import contracts in force and on their real price compared to what is determined every day on the spot market. An issue on which it should however be appreciated that yesterday the Government endowed the regulator Arera with powers aimed precisely at this end “. «This intervention – continues Confindustria – must in any case be accompanied by measures aimed at decoupling the exploitation of electricity from renewable sources from the price of gas. We remain fully confident that at the next European Council the Italian government, together with those of Spain, Portugal and Greece, will advance joint and structural intervention measures ».