Italy's Lower House on Friday
approved definitively the 2024 budget law with 200 votes in
favour, 112 against and 3 abstentions.
The package is worth around 28 billion euros, if one counts a
related tax reform, reducing the number of Irpef income-tax
bands from four to three by merging the two lowest ones.
Roughly half the measures are financed via additional deficit.
Salient features of the budget, which was approved by the Senate
last Friday with a series of change that "have on the whole
generated an improvement in all the public finance balances"
according to Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti, include the
extension by a year of the six-percentage-point reduction in the
labour-tax wedge for those earning up to 35,000 euro and of the
seven-percentage-point reduction for those earning up to 25,000
euro.
The government says this is worth an average increase of around
100 euros a month in the pay packets of 14 million workers.
There are also a number of measures aiming to support families
with children as part of a commitment by the government of
Premier Giorgia Meloni to mitigate the decline in Italy's
birthrate.
Opposition parties have criticized the package, saying it is
"minimalist" and does not stoke economic growth.
Trade unions have expressed their disappointment by staging a
series of strikes.
Industry association Confindustria said it does little for
Italian business.
Premier Giorgia Meloni's government rejected this, saying
investment for business is coming via the National Recovery and
Resilience Plan (NRRP), which seeks to make the Italian economy
greener and more modern with projects funded the help of almost
200 billion euros in EU grants and low-interest loans.
"The budget was prepared in an extremely complicated scenario,
in which the uncertainty linked to recent events in the Middle
East comes on top of the difficulties that have long
characterised the economic and geopolitical situation,"
Giorgetti told a joint session of the Lower House and Senate
budget committees last month.
"A compromise between the different demands and the internal and
external budgetary constraints had to be found within the
executive.
"It was not an easy job, but I think it was done as well as
possible," he said.
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