Regional governments up in arms over Renzi budget

(ANSA) - Rome, October 16 - 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.