Renzi govt poised for budget confidence

(ANSA) - Rome, November 26 - The government will ask for three separate confidence votes on its 2015 budget bill, which it will split three ways when it goes to the Lower House floor, Reform Minister Maria Elena Boschi said Wednesday.
    The bill is expected to go to the House on Friday, a day later than expected, a conference of Lower House whips said Wednesday as the House budget committee was in the process of approving a series of amendments to the bill before it goes to the floor.
    Among them is an amendment extending to 2015 a so-called eco-bobus, which is a 65% tax deduction on construction and renovation that is energy-efficient and earthquake-resistant.
    The ecobonus originally expired at the end of 2013 and in mid-2014, depending on the type of building.
    In addition, the committee approved an amendment allocating 100 million euros to nursery schools, using money from the so-called family fund which also contains the 'baby bonus' for families with small children.
    It also gave the green light to benefits for workers with asbestos exposure, to a 7.7-million-euro increase in a public fund providing food for the destitute, and to 100 million euros a year for cultural preservation from 2016 to 2020.
    As well, the Italian Space Agency (ASI) will receive an additional 740 million euros over six years for European Space Agency-related projects. The House budget committee approved an amendment to the government's 2015 budget bill capping so-called golden or high-end pensions as of January 1 next year.
    Italy reportedly shells out approximately 3.3 billion euros a year to some 33,000 recipients of golden pensions, which reportedly can amount to upwards of 90,000 euros a year or 7,500 euros a month gross.
    In contrast, as many as 6.8 million pensioners have to survive on pre-tax pensions of less than 1,000 euro a month, of which two million live on less than 500 euro monthly, Italy's INPS pension agency disclosed in July this year. The committee also approved an amendment earmarking five million euros in 2015 to the fight against infectious diseases, including Ebola, along with a sub-amendment streamlining procedures for doctors and paramedics to take leaves of absence in order to go fight the Ebola epidemic in western Africa.
    The committee went on to green-light a government amendment to the bill eliminating penalties for people retiring before the age of 62, even though they had already accumulated the mandatory 42 years plus one month of work.
    The penalties had been introduced by former labor minister Elsa Fornero under the technocratic Mario Monti administration, in an effort to cut public spending by delaying retirement and forcing people to work more years.