Budget Law

From healthcare to pensions, from education to taxation: those disappointed with the manoeuvre

The reduction of the Rai licence fee from EUR 90 to EUR 70 for 2025 had been confirmed in the press conference after the measure was passed. But in the 144 articles there is no trace of it

by Redaction Rome

25 October 2024

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Key points

Health care, we go on strike
Less revenue for drug companies, risk of shortages
Pensions, minimum wage increase challenged
School mobilisations, initiatives in 40 cities
Builders worry about expensive materials
Justice, Ocf: stop trials without a unified fee
Fieg: astonishment and bitterness over web tax epilogue
Fiscal law, room for manoeuvre from the concordat?

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The long marathon on the manoeuvre, which has arrived in the House, will officially start on Tuesday in the Budget Committee, and the parties, having read the text, are beginning to study the proposed changes, both the opposition and the majority. The premise in the centre-right's reasoning is always the same. The manoeuvre is 'serious' and 'responsible'. But there is also disappointment for the minimum pensions adjusted by only 3 euros and for shelving the idea of extending the flat tax. Not only that. There is no confirmation in the text of the Budget Law 2025 of the cutting of the RAI licence fee from 90 to 70 euro, envisaged in last year's manoeuvre at the urging of the League, for which the abolition of the licence fee is a warhorse, the loss of revenue having been compensated with a 430 million contribution. The confirmation of the 'discount' was announced at a press conference on 16 October, the day after the manoeuvre was approved by the Council of Ministers. The cut, provided for in the Budget Law 2024, was only valid for this year, if not refinanced. And it could be one of the changes in the parliamentary procedure. The work on the manoeuvre in the House will intersect with that in the Palazzo Madama Senate, where the linked tax decree anticipating some coverage has arrived, and the outcome at the end of the month of the two-year concordat, given that any increased revenue from the special reprieve is earmarked for the reduction of the Irpef.

Health care, we are heading for a strike

It is on health care that the bitterest clash is taking place. The manoeuvre allocates 1.3 billion for 2025 and resources for contracts. Promising recruitment from 2026. For the doctors' and nurses' unions, this is not enough: it 'confirms the reduction in funding compared to what was announced', denounce Anaao, Cimo and Nursing Up, who will cross their arms and take to the streets on 20 November. Hence the appeal launched to the Minister of Health by the president of the Federation of Doctors' Orders (Fnomceo), Filippo Anelli, who invites Schillaci to intervene in order to untie the critical knots of the Budget Law in time to avoid the planned protest initiative.

Less revenue for drug companies, risk of shortages

An article in the text of the manoeuvre deposited in the Chamber puts drug companies in crisis. It is Article 57 on the 'Redetermination of pharmaceutical companies' and wholesalers' quotas and support for pharmaceutical distributors'. In practice, it reduces revenue for drug companies and this, in an already complex situation due to the rising cost of raw materials, creates a real risk of serious shortages for various types of drugs. The industries, warns the Egualia association representing manufacturers of equivalents, biosimilars and Value Added Medicines, would no longer be able to cope with production costs, and citizens would pay the consequences first and foremost.

Pensions, minimum increase challenged

In the measure fired by the government there is the extension of Quota 103, Ape sociale and Opzione donna. But on the social security front what is causing tension is above all the increase in minimum pensions, which from 2025 will rise by 2.2 per cent to 617.9 euros: three euros more from the current 614.77 (without intervention, however, they would have fallen, to 604 euros). Uil pensionati does the calculations: pensioners will have to 'make do with 10 cents a day for 2025 and probably about 4 cents for 2026'.

Mobilitations in schools, initiatives in 40 cities

"A manoeuvre financed with cuts to all the knowledge sectors. No additional resources on the contract, in the face of 18% inflation that has eroded the purchasing power of salaries over the last three years, but only linear cuts. One of 5% that reduces the turnover for the University and Research and a sharp cut for the school of no less than 5660 teachers and 2174 Ata. Cuts that come on top of the school's emergencies, including precarious employment: one out of every four Ata and teachers does not have a stable contract with great damage to teaching as well as to the lives of workers," says Flc CGIL. For all these reasons, the union has called a full-day strike for Thursday, 31 October, with demonstrations, demonstrations and flash mobs in 40 Italian cities. In Rome, the demonstration will be held in front of the Ministry of Education.

Builders are worried about expensive materials

The Ance builders are concerned about the lack of an extension of the rules on expensive materials: without it, they argue, there is a risk of a halt to 'many construction sites, including those in the Pnrr'. A fear that is also shared by Forza Italia, which is preparing to intervene ('I will take care,' announces blue MEP Erika Mazzetti, 'to present an amendment').

Justice, Ocf: stop trials without a unified fee

The Organismo Congressuale Forense expresses 'considerable concern' over 'the government's intention to sanction the non-payment of the unified contribution in civil proceedings with the extinction of the entire trial or with the improcedibility of the application subject to the unpaid fee'. With the Budget law that has begun its passage, "there is a desire to introduce an article in the code of civil procedure with a rule of this tenor, by which de facto powers of financial administration are attributed to the judge," he says in a note, recalling that "every attempt to subordinate the constitutional bulwark of the protection of rights to impositions or patrimonial benefits has been, over time, rejected by the Constitutional Court. The Ocf announces that it intends to take 'every initiative aimed at preventing the approval of the rule' and any other measure 'that bends the judge's work to tax reasons'.

Fieg: astonishment and bitterness over web tax epilogue

The publishers of FIEG express "amazement and bitterness at the provision in the draft budget bill that extends the tax on digital services to all companies that generate revenues from digital services, removing the current thresholds that exclude from the tax companies with less than 750 million in global turnover and with revenues from digital services in Italy of less than 5.5 million". In this way 'all Italian digital companies are hit,' warns the Federation, which hopes for 'a corrective intervention by Parliament'.

Fiscal law, room for manoeuvre from the concordat?

As mentioned, feeding the appetites of the parties could also be the outcome of the two-year agreement for the self-employed. The resources are primarily intended for the further cutting of the Irpef for the middle classes, an intervention on which Forza Italia insists, which would like to reduce the 35% rate by two points and widen the bracket up to 60 thousand euro of income. But if it would go 'particularly well', as Giorgetti anticipated, action could also be taken on the flat tax. A flagship of the League, which aims to further raise the threshold above 85,000 euro.