At the Trento Festival the state of reforms in Cantiere Italia

Italy construction site. The evergreen political debate on the structural reforms needed by the country - a constant over the last forty years - has recently entered the government's agendas in an overbearing manner, partly out of necessity - read post-pandemic trauma - and partly due to the extremely rapid systemic changes in geopolitics, but also to a large extent due to precise choices in the administration of the res publica. Tax reform, for the second year the protagonist of several panels at the Trento Festival of Economics, belongs to the latter genus. It actually began with the publication of Delegated Law 111 in August 2023 - on the assumption that such a wide-ranging and long-term systemic intervention required absolute time priority - and then developed with the issuing of 15 delegated decrees in just over a year and a half. A considerable effort but still not exhaustive, confirming the complexity of the intervention on the tax regulatory system that has grown out of all proportion over the years, so much so that Parliament has meanwhile granted extra time to Palazzo Chigi to complete the work, extending the validity of the reforming proxy until 31 December next year, four months longer than the original deadline. The first balance sheet, as always, offers lights and shadows, both tied more to the expectations of those watching (or vice versa, to fears) rather than to objective data, not yet mature enough to pass a balanced judgement. Certainly, the performance of the tax system in recent times shows incremental efficiency trends, the result of the innovations introduced in the last ten years (digitalisation above all), but it is clear that expectations remain high and the objectives challenging, especially in terms of fairness, which is nothing other than the progressiveness required (imposed) by the Constitution. The tax issue is then only part of the 'container reform' and 'mother' of all the others: that of the public administration. Here the time has really come for a change of pace, not least because Europe is there to facilitate the evolutionary process, with its generous NRP and its penetrating controls on the stages of recovery. The challenge to have a light and efficient, modern and responsive administration is still ongoing and taking it to the end will not be easy. In this context of general reorganisation, however, there is a latent reform that will drag others down with it: who will pay for the pensions of the future? How will generational solidarity and at the same time 'material' equity between generations be guaranteed? How will it be possible to virtuously emerge from the combined effect of demographic glaciation, the ageing of the resident population and the increasingly unbalanced relationship between those who feed the welfare system (workers) and those who - due to age and contribution limits - have accrued the full right to benefit from it (pensioners)? These issues, which are strategic for the future of our country and our society, will also be discussed in Trento, from 22 to 25 May.23 MAY 2025The tax to be simplifiedThe protagonists: Marcello Minenna (economist), Matteo Motolese (Sapienza University of Rome), Giovanni Parente (Il Sole 24 Ore), Maria Pierro (Rector of the University of Insubria), Livia Salvini (Luiss Guido Carli University) 24 MAY 2025Who will pay for pensions

of the futureThe protagonists: Lorenzo Bertoli (president Laborfonds) Alberto Brambilla (president Itinerari previdenziali), Laura Galvagni (Il Sole 24 Ore), Alessandro Molinari (managing director and general manager Itas Mutua), Maurizio Tarquini (general manager Confindustria).