Yesterday's new evening summit at Palazzo Chigi fails to define the precise structure of the budget law. The main obstacles in the way of the manoeuvre, which should arrive in the Council of Ministers between Tuesday and Wednesday, are two: the European response on flexibility and methods of use of the energy clause and the Northern League requests for interventions on pensions. Requests which, as confirmed by more than one source to Il Sole 24 Ore, have taken the form of a substantial veto: without measures on social security, in short, the Northern League would threaten not to vote for the manoeuvre.
At the table with Giorgia Meloni, who insisted that an agreement be reached soon, Antonio Tajani, Maurizio Lupi, Giancarlo Giorgetti and the undersecretaries Alfredo Mantovano and Giovanbattista Fazzolari, the number one of the League, Matteo Salvini, video connected from Milan, relaunched the "quota 64" project and a further freezing of the linking of requirements to life expectancy. An intervention which, even in the mildest formulas, according to initial estimates, would have rapidly growing costs, from 600 million in 2027 to 1.2 billion in 2028, up to 1.5 billion the following year. Too many, for a maneuver that must try to fit within the very narrow margins available the many priorities dear to the majority parties, from families to the middle class, from young people to the elderly, from strengthening healthcare to containing energy costs for citizens and businesses. All items listed in the note released by the majority at the end of the meeting.
Behind the consensus on these principles, however, lies the conflict over pensions. Salvini, also thanks to a poll that would give the League at 7.5% after a victory on social security, would have posed an either/or which at the moment does not seem satisfied with the counter-proposal put forward by Giorgetti, a sort of replica of quota 103 in a lightened form so as not to weigh too heavily on the accounts. The pressure from the League, two days before the Milan congress, found the allies very cold. Fdi fears throwing away four years of rigid fiscal discipline, even more so on the eve of a potentially crucial rating update by S&P on 13 November: with a BBB+ and a positive outlook, a new upward adjustment in the rating would return Italian debt to the agency's "series A" after 14 years.
However, the path of measures for young people appears much smoother. The hypothesis of introducing a flat tax of 5% for those under 30 on their first hire, welcomed by Forza Italia, is gaining ground, together with concessions on rent and the purchase of a first home linked to salaries and reserved for categories such as teachers and law enforcement officers, who are more subject to transfers for work.
The government is not indifferent to the anger that exploded in recent days at the demonstrations in Milan, Turin and Bologna and the need to "concentrate resources on the main economic and social priorities". Hence also the attempt to offer some answers to the middle class - which has reappeared among the priorities - even if the path of the Irpef cut for incomes up to 60 thousand euros remains decidedly uphill: the hypothesis of dividing the reduction into two phases also seems to have disappeared immediately. Other measures remain on the table, including a partial tax relief on thirteenth wages, the expansion of fringe benefits and welfare and the flat tax on overtime: less structural than a tax cut, but considered effective in providing immediate relief to a group in difficulty.
