Premier Mario Draghi on Tuesday said
after a key meeting with trade unions there were many "points of
convergence" between the government agenda and a list of policy
demands the 5-Star Movement (M5S) has tabled to continue backing
Draghi's national unity government, starting from a crucial
confidence vote on a new post-COVID aid decree on Thursday.
These points included moves on the labour-tax wedge and the
minimum wage, the premier stressed.
"Today's meeting with (the unions) goes exactly in that
direction," he told a press conference.
But he also stressed that "government by ultimatums does not
work and does not make sense," referring to ex-premier and M5S
leader Giuseppe Conte's take it or leave it stance.
"There is no government without the M5S and there will be no new
Draghi executive," the premier said.
The former European central banker also underscored that only
President Sergio Mattarella is empowered to decide if and when
to send the government back to parliament to seek fresh
confidence if it loses a confidence test, amid the M5S's threat
to boycott a vote Thursday on a fresh package of post-COVID aid.
In a sign of the new government moves having met the M5S's
demands, Interior Undersecretary Carlo Sibilia, a leading member
of the party, said "we asked for a minimum wage and Draghi
announced it, the M5S's political action is serious and
effective, far from a new Papeete," referring to League leader
Matteo Salvini's sudden break with a former Conte government in
2019, when he said he was seeking "full powers" at a popular
beach club on the Romagna Riviera.
Draghi called for the "full involvement" of Italian unions in
the new social pact the government offered them earlier in the
day with talks slated for later this month on cutting the
labour-tax wedge, introducing a minimum wage and fighting the
precariousness of employment as Italy battles a cost of living
crisis amid soaring energy bill due to the Ukraine war.
He said the government was "ready to act" on the tax wedge cut
and would move towards a minimum wage while stressing that
collective contracts remained a "pillar" of the system.
Draghi said more must be done to help the working poor saying
that breadline wages offered "dramatic figures" of low earners
in Italy.
He also called for "stable structural interventions" against
inflation and said that tax evasion must not be used as a way of
boosting incomes.
Draghi added that a fresh budget adjustment to cover new
spending was not needed "at the moment".
And he said that the new government aid would not trigger a
wage-price spiral.
On the rightwing League party's objections to parliamentary
moves to grant citizenship to children of immigrants and to
partially decriminalize the growing of cannabis, Draghi said
these tensions would not destabilize his government, just as he
hoped the M5S threats would not.
Labour Minister Andre Orlando, for his part, said that the
government was working to link a minimum wage to collective
bargaining and that the meeting with unions had also served as
the first exchange on how to use tax breaks to stabilize
workers.
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