Housing plan, work and fuel excise knot: the government tightens up, towards measures

At least one hundred thousand affordable housing units for the weakest categories: young couples, separated parents, workers and students away from home, the disabled, women victims of violence, families with dependent children, single-parent families. This is what the Italia Housing Plan is aiming at, which next week (Thursday is assumed), after several postponements, will land on the government's table with an initial endowment of just under a billion. The figure is locked in (970 million to start with, to which up to 1.1 billion could be added by drawing on the cohesion funds until 2030) and is also written in black and white in the Infrastructure attachment presented this week by the executive to accompany the public finance document.

The other measures expected in the Council of Ministers are, as is known, the 'employment package' (young people's bonus, women, Zes, hypothesis of tax relief for fourteenth month's salary) and the decision on whether or not to extend the excise cut. But resources are scarce and the government and majority are aiming, as repeatedly stated, at the budget deviation. A hypothesis that could take shape on Thursday with the majority resolution on the Dfp. Even if there is a lot of friction. The slippage at this point would have a wider 'breathing space', in view of the expenditure of the next manoeuvre. It would certainly not serve the purpose of lowering excise duties. If only for the timing of a possible parliamentary decision. The heads of Consob and Antitrust also remain to be appointed.

On the Housing Plan, the premier explained a few days ago that it will be 'a robust, structural plan, which aims to make over 100,000 homes available over the next ten years, including social housing and at subsidised prices'. She was echoed by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport, Matteo Salvini, whose responsibilities include housing policy. 'We are trying to give back to the Italians about 100,000 houses that are not used today,' he said a few days ago, and 'we will approve the plan next week'.

"The objective," explained Tommaso Foti, Minister for European Affairs, Cohesion Policies and the NRP, "is to make a significant contribution to the goal set by the government, i.e. the construction of one hundred thousand new homes in the next ten years. But the figure that would be allocated should be much higher. Foti explained a few days ago: 'The reprogramming of the Cohesion Funds has been concluded with a sum of 7 billion, of which 1.9 billion has been earmarked for housing policies. To these must be added 732 million that derive from projects related to European funds and 1.1 billion that are national resources made available for housing. As far as my ministry is concerned, we are at 3.8 billion, which represents 50 per cent of what the future housing plan will be'.

The government is also aiming to intervene on other fronts in order to speed up the Plan: simplifying the rules for building redevelopment and involving private individuals in the work: banks, real estate funds, asset management companies. And private individuals seem definitely interested: 'The European Sustainable Housing Plan, presented in December, goes in the right direction. Now it is important to proceed quickly in our country too with the implementation of the Home Plan announced by the government,' warned Confindustria's vice-president for credit, finance and tax, Angelo Camilli. All this while other European partners are already racing ahead: the Spanish government has given the go-ahead to the new State Housing Plan with an investment of 7 billion, three times as much as the previous one, to tackle the housing emergency and ensure affordable housing.