The 2015 budget bill containing
four-billion euros in cuts to regional budgets is
"unsustainable" for Italy's regions unless it includes
healthcare cuts, Piedmont governor and chair of the Conference
of the Regions Sergio Chiamparino said Thursday.
He said the government's budget decisions were "legitimate"
but broke a pact between Rome and regional governments.
It will also hit families with an additional bill of 330
euros per year on average due to new levies as the government of
Premier Matteo Renzi "inflicts yet another blow to the welfare
state," consumer groups said.
The "recessionary" measures in Wednesday's budget "hide a
sting on consumers," by forcing regional and local government to
raise levies on health care and other services, said a statement
from Elio Lannutti, president of ADUSBEF, and Rosario
Trefiletti, president of the Federconsumatori.
Renzi's 36-billion-euro budget adjustment for 2015 contains
18 billion euros in tax cuts, including the continuation of a
monthly tax bonus of 80 euros for low-income families, and 15
billion euros in spending cuts.
That tax bonus represents a "vain" hope of encouraging
spending by consumers struggling to make ends meet, said the
consumer groups.
Their struggle will be made worse as costs are shifted from
the level of the national government onto local authorities,
they added.
"The (national) government gives with one hand
while...taking about eight billion euros in new taxes (through
regional levies)," the groups said.
Renzi's measures have "no proven ability to jump-start the
economy and production processes," they added.
The measures "do not respond to a real emergency in the
country which is to create jobs," Susanna Camusso, the head of
the CGIL trade union federation said.
Camusso said the CGIL would make its point at a major
national rally planned for October 25, "north and south,
together for jobs, equality, and dignity".
It also includes "wicked" cuts that will bring the public
sector "to its knees" and lead to higher taxes at the local
level, unions representing public-sector workers said.
Renzi's "television shopping" measures are "the
latest evidence of an inability to change," they said.
The new Italian budget bill contains "a whole series of
measures that firms have been waiting for, for years," Giorgio
Squinzi, head of Confindustria representing large industrial
employers.
"We think it is very positive," Squinzi said outside a
business forum in Milan.
Among the tax measures were cuts to the unpopular IRAP
regional business tax and pledges to eliminate social
contributions for three years for new employees hired on
permanent employment contracts.
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