The measures of the “Aid Decree”

The Council of Ministers has approved the decree on aid to families and businesses to cope with the effects of the Ukrainian crisis. According to the Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, the measure “extends to many areas: we approve liberalizations, reforms in the renewable energy sector, which allow us to accelerate the ecological transition, to make that step in investments in renewable energy, which will help make us more independent from Russian gas. Today’s measures address, first of all, the problem of the cost of living, which can slow down the recovery “. Regarding the current economic situation, the Prime Minister added: “It is not a recession, but a slowdown. There are data showing that in March there were 800,000 more people employed than a year ago. There are signs of a recovery in permanent employment “. In the morning, the Council of Ministers also gave the green light to the decree extending the cut – excise duty on fuels – to 8 July. The intervention is also extended to methane, for which the excise duty goes to zero and VAT is reduced to 5%.
“These news,” related to new jobs, said mr. Draghi, “come at a time when most of the economic diagnoses are more pessimistic, the forecasts of all international institutes show a slowdown, there is talk of the danger of recession, and on the other hand, the risks that we observe deriving from inflation, from war, from sanctions, cannot suggest a positive picture. But it is important to record very positive and unexpected data in this context. The bottom point is that, positive or negative , the government’s commitment to supporting the economy, families and businesses does not diminish, it remains intense, determined, decisive. This is the meaning of this government “. As reported by mr. Draghi, the latest measures are worth 14 billion euros, to be added to the 15.5 of the previous ones, for a total of about 30 billion already spent, two percentage points of gross domestic product, transposed into extraordinary Italian legislation that defined by the EU in the new ‘temporary framework’ “. energy importers and producers who have made extra profits thanks to energy.
It has been also announced that the tax on the extra-profits of large energy companies, which will finance the aid package for pensioners and workers, rises to 25% against the advance. The Aid Law Decree allocates three billion lire for “the revaluation of the prices of public works, both for projects already started and for those to be adopted with the national plan”.
The Law Decree allocates 8 billion euros to a series of interventions ranging from measures against the cost of energy to revising the prices of public works up to the companies most affected by the consequences of the war in Ukraine.
The energy package includes “a regulation on regasifiers, which in mid-2024 may also be virtually independent of Russian gas”. According to the Minister of Ecological Transition, Roberto Cingolani, “we should increase our regasification capacity” and then soon install the first regasifier, which will be floating.
Cingolani is back on the Russian gas replacement plan again, pointing to the second half of 2024 as the period in which there will be another 29 billion cubic meters of gas to replace the Russian one. He then also provided some values. From Algeria – he explained – it will go from 2.1 billion cubic meters to 9 billion. Liquid gas, on the other hand, will also arrive from Congo, Qatar and Angola.

The Minister of Labor Andrea Orlando also spoke at the conference, explaining that the bonus against inflation intervenes on the weakest groups of pensioners and workers, rebalancing them with respect to the shock that the crisis has had and with respect to profits. The government has also decided to adopt an extension of the audience of the beneficiaries of the energy bonus with large families. Mr.Orlando has also underlined the “very positive transition with the trade unions” and the “very favorable climate of confrontation” with which we will have to open the positive debate on the overall trend of wages and poor work.