“The forecasts for 2023 are improving, we expect positive cyclical changes in GDP in the first half of the year, which will lead us to revise slightly upwards the previously indicated growth target of +0.6% for 2023”. Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said so at the Ambrosetti Workshop. “For the rest of the year, although a further acceleration of economic activity is possible for prudential reasons, we will continue to assume a moderate growth rate,” he added.
Giorgetti: recession is not the price to pay for inflation
For the Economy Minister, “fighting inflation with monetary policy is not enough and the recession cannot be the price to pay for taming inflation”. Inflation “seems to have taken a downward curve and in particular thanks to energy prices but for those with political responsibility, the dynamics of the shopping cart, especially food products, cannot fail to worry”
“Pnrr is the government’s priority, meaningless controversy”
As for the implementation of the Pnrr “it is the government’s priority, however I agree on the need to carry out an analysis that allows us to have a precise picture of the overall feasibility of the interventions envisaged to improve, as far as possible, the most problematic aspects and, if necessary, review the initial plans,” said the Economy Minister. “It is a position that is not new to me and which I have already expressed as Minister of Economic Development and I observe, in recent days, controversies that make no sense”, notes the minister who adds: “Compared to the initial approach, there is was the outbreak of a war in the heart of Europe with repercussions on the matter. And if we really want to find a cause of the difficulty in implementing the Pnrr, we must simply find it in the stress – he explains – to which we have subjected the bureaucratic structure of the public administration which probably was not and is not up to the task of supporting this type of demand shock”. .
“We are evaluating measures to improve public administration and help businesses”
In any case, «a measure is being evaluated to improve the organization of the Public Administration structure for the Pnrr» added Giorgetti on the sidelines of the Ambrosetti Workshop. On the business front, the “guarantees are instead being studied by the MEF: it is a proposal that we would also like to bring to Europe to help improve the system that allows companies, especially those that deal with large infrastructure projects, to have a more ‘friendly’ system, and have the possibility to at least start with the construction site, otherwise today it becomes complicated»
«Replace spot bonus with systematic tax cuts»
Tax chapter. “The basic philosophy is to replace all spot interventions, in the form of bonuses for anything, with a more systematic line of tax reduction, leaving the citizen the choice of how to use what is left in his pocket”. And once more: «We have lived these 3 years in a situation in which the European rules of budgetary discipline of the stability pact were suspended», he recalled. During covid, «it was possible to imagine forms of intervention, bonuses, tax credits of all kinds, outside of any rule. It is enough to look at the levels of debt to GDP made in 2021-2022 and also the effects in terms of growth”. This world “is closing in the sense that, beyond the positions of Germany and the Nordics who are very firm on the point, from next year the rules will come back into force, and therefore we must imagine a gradual and as orderly as possible exit from this subsidy system.