Budget bill: the hunt for funding. Tajani: ‘Contributions from the entire financial sector, including CDP’

The 5 billion euros included under the ‘resources’ heading for the forthcoming budget law within the Draft Budget Bill (DPB) relate to the entire financial sector, ‘including Cassa Depositi e Prestiti’. This was stated by Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani, speaking on the sidelines of the ‘Welfare, Italia’ Forum regarding the funding of the budget bill. A hot topic, which was at the centre of the summit held at Palazzo Chigi on Monday evening.

Tajani did not comment on the allocation of the 5 billion. However, he made it clear that ‘it will not only concern banks and insurance companies’, but also CDP ‘and other organisations’. He emphasised that the aim of the contribution would not be ‘punitive, and would not target so-called windfall profits’.

Tajani pointed out that it will therefore be necessary to consider ‘a different kind of measure’ from the taxation of profits, ‘taking particular account of the specific nature of local banks, cooperative credit banks and people’s banks, which must be protected because they are the ones that provide loans to small business owners and households’.

“We must be careful,” he explained, “to ensure that the measures do not have a severe impact on and cause problems for cooperative credit banks and other local banks,” he concluded.

Funds that the government intends to use primarily for social spending and, more specifically, for the ‘most vulnerable’ families, as set out in the Budget Policy Document. This item amounts to just under 5 billion euros, with particular emphasis on the extension of measures already implemented in the previous budget – such as the increase in the bonus for working mothers – and possible new initiatives, such as the healthcare cashback scheme called for by Forza Italia.