The Tav funds and the FdI trap at the Five stars
A possible “trap” for the government could be set by the funds for the Turin – Lyon Tav. In this case, the attempted trip would be FdI. After all, the leader Giorgia Meloni stressed that “it is time to play attack”, and that in this final part of the legislature she will not give discounts to the center-right allies in the government. Between Wednesday 23 February and Thursday 24, an opinion will be voted on the Strategic Document for rail passenger and freight mobility in the Chamber’s Transport Committee. In this circumstance, many parties (not only Fdi) will formally ask the Government that the State give adequate funding to the national section of the Turin-Lyon TAV. A perspective that puts the Five Stars in difficulty (who have never frowned upon that work). The risk is that a new majority will be formed which puts all the parties in from Fdi to the Democratic Party and leaves out the Five Stars.
Reform of bathing concessions and competition law
With a go-ahead in the Council of Ministers reached unanimously, the government has collected the expected modification of the bathing concessions, a missing piece of the competition reform to which the PNRR funds are linked. Without forgetting the risk of a maxi EU fine. All after the ruling by which the Council of State had imposed on Italy to open the sector to competition rules. The solutions to ensure the conduct of tenders for maritime state-owned concessions for tourist-recreational use should be included in an amendment to the draft law on competition, which is being examined by the Senate. Unblocking of tenders protecting investments and small family businesses but also consumers, with the brake on the “expensive umbrella”, however, the League is not enough, which voted on the rules in the Council of Ministers but a minute later said it was ready to ask for changes in Parliament. Il Carroccio, undersecretary Gian Marco Centinaio recalled, acknowledges that “some proposals” have been accepted but the text will be “changed and improved” in Parliament, together with sector associations and “together with the rest of the center-right”. Meanwhile, the already long list of hearings on the competition bill, blocked in commission at Palazzo Madama, is getting longer. In the meeting of Wednesday 16 February, on the proposal of the Lega rapporteur Paolo Ripamonti, the Senate Industry Commission decided to listen to the bathing operators who asked for a new hearing following the government’s launch of the amendment to the Bill which limits to December 31, 2023 the term of validity of the current concessions without tender (see also Il Sole 24 Ore of February 19). The bathers had already been heard on February 8.
Tax delegation, land registry reform and flat tax
Regarding the tax delegation, the Lega asks with the entire center-right the excerpt of the land registry reform (“Going to market value means more taxes on the house”, the thesis of Alberto Gusmeroli) and raises the flat tax up to 100 thousand euros. The Leaguers are not willing to give up, but one way out could be to insert the measure into another provision, such as Sostegni ter (dl 4/2022), on which an avalanche of amendments is expected in the Senate Budget Committee (term at 3 pm on Monday 21 February). “We risk throwing the tax reform overboard for a pretext, it is populism to say that the delegation hides a patrimonial”, is the alarm launched by the president of the Finance Committee of the Chamber, Luigi Marattin (Iv). “It is not appropriate to start examining the amendments without clarity on the path and the nodes – recalled Luca Pastorino, who for Leu proposes the advance from 2026 to 2023 of the changes to the cadastre -, we need a comparison in the commission but also at a higher level. Otherwise there is a risk that the government will go under or create variable majorities ». The government suggested eliminating amendments in committee that add new issues, those that affect financial coverage and those that are too divisive. But so far no one has taken steps backwards, and a postponement of the arrival of the provision in the Chamber, scheduled for Monday 28 February, has been requested.
End of life
After the rejection by the Council of the referendum presented by the Radicals, now the debate on the end of life moves to Parliament. The law on assisting suicide (“Provisions on medically assisted voluntary death”) took a symbolic step in the Chamber which voted and rejected the first amendments of the center-right, purely suppressive amendments that would have ditched the law. Precisely the non-admissibility of the referendum proposed by the Coscioni association has prompted Pd and M5s to declare it essential to finally have a law on assisted suicide passed in Parliament which must implement the sentence of the Constitutional Court of November 2019, after the constitutional judges already a year earlier they had urged the Chambers to legislate. The text had a symbolic passage in the Chamber in the Chamber with the first vote, a rejection of two identical amendments by Fi and the League which suppressed Article 1 and therefore the entire provision. Despite the secret vote, the votes in favor of the suppressive were only 126 compared to 262 against. In the debate that preceded the vote, the center-right parties, from the Lega to Forza Italia and FdI, in addition to the centrists of Coraggio Italia, expressed their opposition to the text. Supported, however, by Pd, Leu and Movimento 5 Stelle, while Italia viva has left freedom of conscience to its parliamentarians. From Wednesday 23 February onwards, the date on which the House’s work on the bill will resume, there could be a second round.
Bill decree and provision on superbonus
The government unanimously passed two decrees, against expensive bills and to correct the transfer of Superbonus credits. In the first maxidecree, the interventions to deal with the emergency. But in the longer term we are looking at the increase in national energy production to secure the country and to avoid price hikes. The goal, explained the Minister of Ecological Transition Roberto Cingolani, is to go from the current 3.2 billion to 5 billion cubic meters of self-produced gas, optimizing the extractions in existing fields in the Sicilian Channel, in Ravenna and in the Marche. . Without neglecting nuclear power, an issue on which Salvini has been pressing for some time, relaunched by Berlusconi who believes it is “essential to resume research” on the latest generation. Draghi has not yet expressed himself clearly on this topic, which is probably too divisive to be addressed in a time horizon of just one year. The Five Stars hold back: they filed a motion in the Senate in which they highlight that drilling and nuclear power are false solutions, and raise the opportunity to recover resources to calm the prices of energy for families and businesses from the extra-profits of large companies (one a similar line is supported by the Lega and the Italian Left) As regards the superbonus dossier, on the other hand, in the Senate – as it was written – the examination of the Sostegni ter dl in the Budget Committee comes to life, where divergent pressures risk recurring, for example on further changes on this issue, after the corrective approved by the government on the assignment of credits.