Meloni: 'The EU should provide structural responses on energy'

If Europe does not build "structural and long-term responses" against high energy prices, "we risk remaining at the mercy of the emergency". In front of the entrepreneurs of Assolombarda, Giorgia Meloni vindicates her government's efforts to defend an economy that has had "weak" growth but "has withstood the shock wave", stinging Istat with an implicit reference to the decimal of the deficit/GDP ratio which prevented the exit from the infringement procedure: "When we are systematically underestimated by our bodies, it's a bit disappointing, but that's how it is". And it looks above all to Brussels to tackle inflation. After the summit with the other majority leaders on the manoeuvre, expected before the Council of Ministers scheduled for the evening, and the communications in Parliament on Wednesday, the EU Council will reiterate the request for flexibility on Thursday, "a simple proposal of common sense, as well as responsibility".

Meanwhile, together with the heads of government of Germany and Belgium, he wrote to President Antonio Costa. A letter, they explain from Palazzo Chigi, to underline the close connection between simplification, expensive energy and industrial competitiveness. Meloni, Friedrich Merz and Bart De Wever ask for a preferential lane to accelerate investments in priority sectors, starting with energy and digitalisation; a brake against new bureaucratic burdens; a generalized reduction in EU corporate sustainability reporting obligations, especially for SMEs. "In Europe, Italy has the right and duty to say what is wrong", underlined the prime minister. The list is not short. And on several dossiers the distances with the Brussels executive are not even clear. "The Commission has already outlined the margins of flexibility available to member countries to deal with the high cost of living and, in particular, the energy crisis we are experiencing", notes the EU Commissioner for Justice, Michael McGrath, during a visit to Rome, highlighting that Brussels works "closely" with governments "to ensure that they have the necessary flexibility, while at the same time respecting the needs of fiscal sustainability". Meloni has long been pressing the EU on the ETS system on emissions trading.

"It inflates prices, creates imbalances between member states and damages our businesses", he reiterates in front of the audience of Lombard entrepreneurs, just as in Luxembourg the Deputy Minister for the Environment Vannia Gava asks the EU Environment Council to "evaluate the suspension of the start of Ets 2", which from 2028 will apply to road transport and buildings. But the Commission does not foresee changes to the plan, clarifies the EU climate commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra. Ursula von der Leyen's letter to the 27 sounds like a response to Rome (but also to Berlin) and to the push against the multiplication of rules: it is the proposal for a pact against so-called gold-plating, against the tendency in individual states to burden European directives from a regulatory point of view.

On the internal front, however, Meloni is struggling with the maneuver. In the next few hours he will see the other center-right leaders, and in the meantime he announces that he is working on "a fiscal measure to facilitate investments in software used through cloud contracts". "The banks will certainly and spontaneously make a contribution without any quick intervention", says the Northern League member Matteo Salvini, sure that in this way "we will pay for the pension reform and the increase in the flat tax". Forza Italia, after an internal meeting with the secretary Antonio Tajani, asks for the no tax area for young people, the extension of the exemption from road tax for all first cars, support for medical expenses already in the current year (and not in the following) and the Irpef reduction of 33 percent up to 60 thousand euros.