Premier Matteo Renzi faced a
number of budget-related headaches Tuesday, from unions blasting
measures affecting pension paydays to questions and
'clarifications' sought from the European Commission.
Unions representing pensioners complained that a measure in
the government's 2015 budget law will sow confusion by changing
the day on which State pensions are paid.
Instead of payments issued to pensioners on the first of
each month, beginning next year, they will be paid on the 10th.
"It's a full-blown attack on the elderly," the leaders of
the SPI CGIL, FNP CISL and UILP UIL unions said in a joint
statement.
"It's simply unacceptable. We ask ourselves what the
pensioners and elderly have done to be treated like this".
Late in the day, the public pension agency INPS said it
would implement the change gradually, adding the new measure
will save millions by aligning public pension paydays with other
pension paydays.
Meanwhile, sources said that President Giorgio Napolitano's
office was conducting a "careful examination" of Renzi's budget
law, which the president must sign off on before it can begin
its passage through parliament.
The sources said careful study was needed as it was "a
highly complex bill by its nature".
The bill faced similar close scrutiny at the European
Commission, where Economic Affairs Commissioner Jyrki Katainen
warned that the EC was "in contact with the Italian authorities
to have clarifications about some figures" in the budget law.
His economic affairs directorate general was working on a
letter of response to Rome's budget plan, added Katainen.
However, Renzi's government is not worried about the EC's
reaction, said Italy's European Affairs Undersecretary Sandro
Gozi.
There is speculation the EC may ask for Rome to make
changes.
"We are relaxed," Gozi told ANSA outside meetings in
Luxembourg.
"The budget is already compatible with EU rules and
coherent with the commitments made, which also ensure growth".
The budget features 18 billion euros in tax cuts as part of
a drive to boost growth in the recession-battered Italian
economy and create jobs, with unemployment over 12%.
Around 11 billion euros of financial coverage for the cuts
will come from allowing Italy's deficit-to-GDP ratio to drift up
towards the 3% threshold allowed by the EU.
Italy has told the EC that the budget will enable it to
reduce its "structural" deficit by 0.1% of gross domestic
product between 2014 and 2015 in the draft budgetary plan it
sent Brussels.
According to some reports, the EC wants a much bigger
reduction in the structural deficit, which the draft budgetary
plan said will come down by 0.5% of GDP in 2016.
Renzi's government recently said in the revised version of
its three-year economic blueprint, the Economic and Financial
Document (DEF), that it will not be able to balance the budget
in structural terms until 2017, one year later than its previous
target.
Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan says he hopes that
Italy's gross domestic product will increase by at least 0.6%
next year, as his government has forecast.
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