Stalemate on manoeuvre, committee postponed. All the knots to unravel

Stalemate on the manoeuvre. The sitting of the Senate Budget Committee, scheduled for 11pm tonight, has been called off. The bilateral meetings with the parliamentary groups scheduled for the afternoon are also skipped, according to reports. No vote has therefore yet been held on the budget bill (the cbudget committee is convened on Monday 15 December 2025 at 2pm), which is on first reading in Palazzo Madama in order to be definitively approved by Parliament by the end of the year.

There are several knots still open. Among the amendments that still have to be filed are the package on local authorities and some novelties on safety at work. Also awaited is the reformulation of the amendment on the Bank of Italy's gold. On this last piece, the Minister of the Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti, is conducting a delicate negotiation with the ECB, which should have found a final landing in a reformulation that, while maintaining the passage on the gold reserves belonging to the Italian people, a historical battle of Fratelli d'Italia, will reaffirm that these will continue to be managed and held by Bankitalia in respect - and this would be the compromise reached with the Frankfurt institute - of its independence and autonomy and in accordance with the European Treaties.

As for the part on local authorities, the one finalised in the last few hours takes Rome Capital out of the equalisation component of the solidarity fund by defining a priori the resources for the Capitol. Fratelli d'Italia does not agree and proposes to intervene on the government's proposal that, in the reformulation of the budget law, envisages a cut in RAI funding of €10 million per year from 2026 to 2028. And it also calls for the deletion of the paragraph that establishes the reduction of 20 million euros per year in the contribution to local TV and radio.

Among the games still open, there is also the one on the tightening of compensation for professionals who collaborate with the public administration but who are not in order with the tax authorities: the leghists are calling for a course correction and have presented a corrective amendment, signed by Gianluca Cantalamessa and Marco Dreosto, to remove the tax filter entirely. But Fratelli d'Italia also took the field to urge the withdrawal of the amendment presented in recent days by the government.

Another front to be unravelled is that of the new tax on parcels, where the logistics sector is on the warpath in view of the rather real risk of a double levy: in addition to the one decided in the manoeuvre with the introduction of a government amendment that sets a tax of 2 euros on every consignment "coming from countries outside the European Union with a declared value not exceeding 150 euros", there is a risk of adding a similar levy coming from Brussels. Where the European Council has announced the start, as of next 1 July, of a levy of €3 on the same parcels up to €150 inbound from states outside the Old Continent. With the result, complain operators and also consumer associations, that under these circumstances, two taxes would be paid on the same shipment.