There are those who swear they have seen him angrier than ever, almost transfigured. To the sounds of screaming and punches on the table, the minister’s anger Giancarlo Giorgetti It exploded suddenly, exactly seven days ago, in his office on Via XX Settembre. It has long been known that his seat is the most uncomfortable in the entire government: after one Budget law – last year’s – hastily written immediately after he took office, under objectively difficult conditions, this year the executive carried out Giorgia Meloni finds it difficult to write his first real maneuver. Not that the financial situation has improved compared to twelve months ago, but this time the Prime Minister and ministers have had a full year to work on it.
Already stressed by the constant requests from colleagues, the dictates imposed by Brussels and the thousand dossiers that land on his desk every day, Giorgetti literally erupted last week in front of the incredulous eyes of his employees. The reason? Well, in those same hours, just before the League’s number two appeared in the Council of Ministers to present the Nadef, the European Statistical Office (known to everyone as Eurostat) announced the decision to change its “judgment” about the Great bonus. A decision that will have serious implications for our country’s current and future monetary availability.
Eurostat changes its mind on the super bonus: what it means and what consequences it will have
To fully understand what is happening and what the Italian minister’s fears arise from, we need to take a step back and rewind the tape to last spring. Last February Eurostat classified i Credits linked to the 110% bonus as a public issue, so that they are all payable in the first year of activation. We are talking about 90 billion euros which would therefore have been placed “on the back” of the included period between 2020 and 2022, with no impact on subsequent years. The mechanism is simple. Have you agreed to an action that creates debt? That is why Eurostat needs to understand in what period it should be “settled”.
The Luxembourg-based panel’s decision was made based on this fact Transferability and discount on the invoice They meant that the super bonus credits would certainly be collected. Therefore, they had to be included in the deficit of the years in which they were approved. Today, however, given the amount of stranded loans that the beneficiaries do not yet have, the state of technology has changed radically and the European Statistical Office has had to recalibrate its assessments. Well, Giorgetti didn’t take it very well.
Government in budget crisis: the question of the super bonus and the other thorns in Giorgetti’s side
Now the risk that everyone fears – starting with the thousands of construction companies and construction companies that have taken on the bonus loans – is that some of this money will be lost and not reach the state coffers. A scenario that would bring Italy back to square one a broader perspective over time: If I can’t collect as much as expected, I have to do it tighten the belt for a longer period. Therefore, the impact of the super bonus on the state treasury must be calculated also for 2023 and the coming yearsat least until the matter can be considered plausibly concluded.
An unprecedented blow to the government, which is already struggling with the very complicated task of finding funding for the project Exercises 2024. Among the continuous increases of Gasoline price (with the consequent obligation to provide new funds to control the costs of diesel and petrol), galloping inflation what kept us company all summer and the deterioration of the overall picture in relation to GDP growth (which will not exceed +1% as confirmed by the Parliamentary Budget Office), Palazzo Chigi is bending over backwards to avoid giving the impression that it is in the dark. But what is visible to everyone.
Bad credit and stalled sales: This is how the super bonus will affect the maneuver
But when will it have an impact, with calculator in hand? the legacy of the 110% bonus in the accounts for this year and the near future? In addition to the 90 billion mentioned above, there are around thirty billion more, so almost in total 120 billion euros which will most likely need to be disseminated until 2027. So for the entire term of office of the current government, whose hands would be tied to implementing the “economic and financial revolution” program with which the center-right coalition won the political elections in September 2022.
Furthermore, the situation is exacerbated by the specter of return Strict European rules in force until 2020, then suspended due to the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. Italy is negotiating with the other member states of the Union for greater flexibility, particularly with regard to military spending and those related to the PNRR, which Rome wants to exclude when calculating its annual debt. But achieving the desired result does not seem to be a given, given the intransigence that has always characterized the attitude of the so-called “frugal countries” towards the EU Germanyclosely followed by Holland and Belgium.
The blow of the super bonus to public finances: how does the government get out of it?
With the data at hand, Giorgetti’s goal is therefore to limit the damage. How it goes? The currently most popular hypothesis is that of a Agreement with the banks who could voluntarily transfer the tax credits to the Ministry of Finance and receive them in return newly issued government bonds (BTP) of comparable value. A trick that would not bring in large sums of money for the state, but that would create space in the belly of the credit institutions, which could thus buy up the stranded tax credits and thus help avoid the scenario outlined by Eurostat. If new BTP problems have arisen until December 31stThey could be counted in this year’s budget and thus relieve the burden for 2024.
A truly complex puzzle that Giorgetti knows he cannot solve alone. The negotiations with the municipal leaders and the other ministers of the European Union are aimed at precisely this: to ease the conditions for Italy, to solve internal problems and to create a Structural reform plan. All in the hope of being able to reduce the mammoth (at least a small part). National debt that we carry around with us like a ball and chain. At the moment, the conditions for this do not seem to be in place: if Eurostat also gets involved, it is clear that nerves could collapse at any moment.