Premier Giorgia Meloni vowed an
"operation truth" on critical issues that had been raised in a
Senate debate on the second confidence vote that will bring her
rightwing government into the fullness of its powers Wednesday
night.
Italy's first woman premier said critical issues had emerged, as
well as "the scant resources we will have at our disposal" to
tackle emergencies such as soaring energy bills and a looming
recession.
"A reality has emerged, the speeches have helped us to carry out
a great operation truth on the conditions of the Italy which we
have inherited from those who accuse us," she said, referring
primarily to the centre left opposition.
"It is good that Italians should know the conditions we have
inherited," she said, referring to public spending and budget
constraints.
She also said her maiden speech to the House Tuesday had been
criticised for allegedly lacking "concrete responses" to the
many challenges it had listed facing the new government.
She said she partly agreed, stressing that "without a vision,
responses are ineffectual".
Moving onto concrete ground, she said she would fight
speculation to curb rising energy bills, resume drilling for gas
around Italy's shores, and fund programmes by finding budgetary
wiggle room and taxing the excess profits of the energy giants
in a windfall tax.
Meloni said she would push the EU on energy but was already
ready to decouple gas and electricity prices.
She also warned that "we cannot move from a dependence on Russia
to one on China".
Meloni vowed to turn the south of Italy into "Europe's energy
hub" with solar and wind power among other renewable resources.
"Let's help young people stay in the Mezzogiorno", instead of
having to emigrate for jobs, she said.
On fighting climate change, Meloni warned that Italy could not
be "bound hand and foot" to the most polluting nations, and said
that Italy and the EU must address the issue together because
"the emissions are global".
On COVID, she said that previous governments had framed policy
"without scientific evidence for the measures you were taking".
Meloni, who gained votes from anti-Green Pass protesters, has
already said she would not make the same "restrictive" choices
if another wave of COVID hits Italy.
On taxes, where she has promised an amnesty for tax dodgers,
Meloni said the government would gradually cut the labour tax
wedge by up to five points, two thirds on the workers' side and
one third on the side of businesses.
She also said that hiring people must be made more appealing for
firms.
Repeating a vow to introduce an "incremental flat tax", the
premier said this would reward "the merit of those who roll up
their sleeves".
On the 200-billion-euro EU-funded post-COVID National Recovery
and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Meloni said that due to the previous
government less than half of the alllotted funds, 21 billion
compared to over 42, would be spent by the year's end and it was
time to "speed things up".
She said that the NRRP procedures must be changed due to the
risk of tenders being "deserted".
The premier confirmed that the government would raise the
ceiling on cash payments, which "penalises the worse off",
noting that countries like Germany and Austria have no limit to
cash payments.
In other remarks, Meloni said the government would up checks and
prevention against road accidents.
Referring to allegedly heavy handed policing of a Rome student
protest trying to stop "fascists" from her party from speaking
at the uni, Meloni said "I never took to the streets to stop
others speaking".
Meloni also said that more assets seized from the mafia should
be used for social purposes.
She said that prison overcrowding could not be eased by
de-criminalising offences.
Meloni added that "you don't achieve peace by waving rainbow
flags in piazza".
She also rapped opposition Senator and former prosecutor Roberto
Scarpinato for drawing a strained and "ideological" comparison
between past rightist terrorist crimes and the government's
plans to introduce semi-presidentialism.
Meloni said peace in Ukraine could only be achieved "by
supporting Kyiv" and said that the government would step up the
fight against the mafia by defending tough life sentences for
convicted mafiosi.
After Meloni's speech, Senators started making speeches
declaring their voting intentions and the confidence vote was
expected to be passed around dinner time, making the government
fully operational.
In her maiden address in the House Tuesday, Meloni described
herself as an underdog who would beat the odds again in
achieving her policy goals, including energy hike curbs,
continuing to help Ukraine and cleave to the EU and NATO line,
introducing French-style semi-presidentialism and forging a
fiscal truce.
She also stressed that she had no sympathy for Fascism and that
its racial laws were the lowest point in Italian history.
The government won the confidence of the House with 235 votes in
favour, 154 against and five abstentions.
A bill presented by Deputy Premier and Infrastructure Minister
Matteo Salvini's League party to raise Italy's limit for cash
payments from 2,000 euros to 10,000 euros has come under fire
from the opposition.
Salvini said the proposal makes sense and would help to have
"less bureaucracy, more freedom".
Giovanbattista Fazzolari, a Senator for Meloni's FdI party, also
backed the idea, saying it was part of the victorious
centre-right coalition's election manifesto.
Fazzolari said that lifting the threshold could be among the
measures in the government's 2023 budget law.
But the opposition centre-left Democratic Party (PD) said it was
strongly against the idea.
"It totally goes against what has been done in Italy and most
European countries in in recent years to gradually reduce the
use of cash and encourage traceable payments and the fight
against the underground economy," said the PD's economic
pointman Antonio Misiani.
When asked about the bill, European Commission Vice-President
Valdis Dombrovskis said that setting the cash-payment limit was
up to member States, while adding that the EU executive
preferred the thresholds to be low.
There is no limit in Germany and the Netherlands, 1,000 euros in
France, and 500 in Greece, the country with the lowest limit.
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