Zes, Salvini’s proposal: to extend it to border areas. Here’s what it entails

“The experiment in cutting red tape in the south has yielded excellent results, revitalising economically struggling areas that have attracted investment – I’m thinking of certain border regions where our businesses and workers, of course, face unfair competition. Consider the difference in wages between Como and Switzerland; consider the difference in the cost of petrol and energy between Trieste and Slovenia.” The leader of the Lega and Deputy Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini, summarised the situation as follows during a press conference held at Montecitorio to outline the proposed bill to extend the tax benefits provided for under the ZES to certain areas in the north.

“We hope that this proposal will receive particular attention, not only from the majority, I trust, but it would be good if the opposition were also to support and back it, because entrepreneurs and cross-border workers in border areas do not have party membership cards to distinguish them, so we are offering the whole Parliament the opportunity to turn this proposal, which comes from our regions, into law.”

The mechanism would be the same as that of the single Special Economic Zone (SEZ) for Southern Italy, with a steering committee based at Palazzo Chigi, a task force to monitor results, and a three-year plan to determine what types of incentives and investments to provide. The funding requirement has been estimated at 3 billion, with the necessary funds to be raised, for the time being, through government bonds and budget savings. The draft bill – which Salvini outlined alongside the Lega’s parliamentary group leader in the Chamber of Deputies, Riccardo Molinari – also stipulates that companies benefiting from the incentives must remain in the region for at least five years, whilst workers must have been resident there for at least five years.

Salvini then took the opportunity during the press conference to return to the pressing issue of the railways, which are still being affected by delays caused, amongst other things, by the various construction sites on the high-speed line, starting with the Florence junction. ‘This morning I woke up to a call from the CEO of RFI alerting me to a cable cut on the railway line in Calabria, which has brought traffic to a standstill.’ To date, “a quarter of the disruptions are caused by damage or malicious acts” at a time when “we have more construction sites open than ever before in history. If, on top of the disruptions” linked to the works, “we add terrorism, people stealing copper, people cutting cables…I hope there are no political motives behind these acts’, because it is the passengers who end up bearing the brunt of it.

The Deputy Prime Minister also set a deadline for the group’s top management to resolve the deadlock, following Stefano Donnarumma’s resignation in recent days. “The meeting has been called for Monday morning and I think it will be attended not only by the new CEO but by the entire FS team.” The current head of Trenitalia, Gianpiero Strisciuglio, is the frontrunner for the CEO post.