Pharmacies, universities, schools and businesses: final go-ahead for the Simplification Act: all new features

Final go-ahead from the Chamber of Deputies for the bill to simplify economic activities and services for citizens and businesses. The measure, linked to the 2025 public finance manoeuvre, is in essence an 'omnibus', as it provides for solutions in several areas. The text received 124 yes votes, 73 votes against, with 6 abstentions.

Title I - Simplification measures in favour of economic activities - includes simplifications for businesses (Chapter I) such as the reduction from twelve to six months of the time limit within which public administrations may proceed with the ex officio cancellation of administrative measures authorising or granting economic advantages; simplifications for tourism (Chapter II) such as a facilitating and simplifying discipline for interventions, started before 31 December 2026, of restructuring for workers in the tourist-accommodation sector; simplifications for navigation (Chapter III) such as the regulation of the professional figure of the port chemist; further measures (Chapter IV) such as the reorganisation of the Automobile Club of Italy.

Title II - Simplification measures in favour of citizens - includes simplifications of administrative procedures for citizens (Chapter I) such as a new method of transcribing the acceptance of inheritance and a reform of the action for reduction of donations, with the replacement of the system that provides for the possibility of bringing an action for reduction of donated property (which under certain conditions may end with the restitution of the property to the estate), with a new system based on the economic compensation of the heir or legatee injured simplifications in the field of education (chapter II), such as the telematic processing of enrolments in first- and second-cycle state schools and educational institutions.

Title III - Further simplification measures - includes simplifications in the field of universities (Chapter I), such as a new procedure for the approval of university statutes and regulations; simplifications in the field of health (Chapter II), such as the extension of the range of services that can be provided by pharmacies to, among others, the administration of vaccines to persons aged 12 years or more, the performance of decentralised diagnostic tests to combat antibiotic resistance, the performance of telemedicine services, and the choice by citizens of general practitioner and paediatrician of free choice simplifications in the area of public security (Chapter III), such as the transfer from the Minister of the Interior to the Prefect of the power to issue licences for the manufacture, possession and sale of weapons of war; simplifications in the area of implementation of legal obligations (Chapter IV), such as the delegation of powers to the Government on the use and economic utilisation of sewage sludge.