Meloni reopens the confrontation with the unions: “Let’s make the right choices together. The government is there”

Institutional reforms, fiscal delegation, inflation, pensions, safety at work and productivity: these are the dossiers that Giorgia Meloni put on the table in the discussion with the unions which was held this afternoon at Palazzo Chigi. The table preceded the one with companies, scheduled for the evening. The message that the executive has delivered to the social partners is that a constructive, non-ideological approach is needed, that resources are not infinite and that for this it is necessary to make choices, hopefully shared. “Do we want to try to make these choices together? I would like to have an involvement that was not prejudiced – said the premier – in the interest not of the individual but of the nation. If there is a real will to do something, solutions can be found I want to try to understand if we want to have a constructive approach on the merits while respecting the differences”.

The unions’ response was not long in coming, but as always the distinctions characterize the positions of the three confederal acronyms. For the general secretary of the Cisl, Luigi Sbarra, it was “an important meeting, which rewards the efforts of two months of mobilization. A good start for a new path of sharing”. For Maurizio Landini of the CGIL, the executive’s willingness to dialogue is not enough: “We consider this convocation important, but there are no results to date, so as far as we are concerned, we need to continue the mobilization”, he declared as he left the table. Pierpaolo Bombardieri of Uil remains cautious: “We appreciated and gave willingness to have a discussion, we are waiting to see the call-ups and perhaps on that occasion we will have the opportunity to discuss the merits of the issues”.

Among the innovations announced is the establishment at Palazzo Chigi of an observatory on purchasing power which monitors “wages, prices and pricing policy, the implementation and effects of the measures introduced and which perhaps have not given expected results, such as the reduction of VAT on products for early childhood”. According to the prime minister this “is the most important issue, from which the others also depart. I will try to be present in person so that together we can unravel the crux of this tangle”. The other announcement concerns the tax authorities: “The objective of the tax delegation is the overall reform of the system, with a progressive reduction of the Irpef rates to lower the tax burden. This means, in our idea, significantly expanding the lowest bracket to include many more workers”. On the same theme, Meloni added that he wanted to include a series of deductions for employees as well, including that on transport. “We want to make the issue of fringe benefits and the tax relief of the employer’s contribution structural for workers who have a child”, confirmed the prime minister, as already anticipated by Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti.

On Meloni pensions, the priority is “to guarantee the stability of the system and avoid the emergence of a social bomb in the coming decades”, the premier told the unions, according to what the agencies report. For this reason, the government has set up an observatory for the monitoring of social security expenditure at the Ministry of Labour: “It will be useful for mapping all expenditure and also for evaluating the effects of certain measures on the subject of company redundancies and generational turnover. The first table it will be on pension advances, then we will work on strengthening the social security system, with particular regard to future pensions”. The invitation is to keep the dialogue open: “Confrontation with the social partners on these issues is particularly valuable. I believe that we can start from the work of the Observatory and the technical tables, a study work, and then continue with a overall comparison on the pension system. A comparison that can lead us to better solutions in a very complex matter”.

Speaking of employment, the prime minister brought the positive data certified by Istat as a starting point for the discussion and stressed that she wanted to intervene to facilitate female employment. “As recorded by Istat, a record was reached in March both in terms of employment rate and number of employees and permanent contracts. This too is certainly an encouraging sign. We have already adopted various measures but we want to further encourage permanent employment, especially in the field of female employment, which remains our main gap compared to the European average”, explained Meloni. “If we bridged that gap, we would in fact bridge the entire employment gap we have compared to other European countries. This remains a huge issue especially for the regions of the South. Our measures have therefore focused above all on the fragile, on women, on young people and on citizen’s income recipients”.

Overall, Meloni recalled, “the Italian economy is giving encouraging signs in this phase, the recent forecasts of the European Commission have revised upwards the Italian GDP, predicting growth of 1.2 percent for the current year , higher than the average of the euro countries. It hasn’t happened for a few years”. The government’s approach “was cautious” in the Def, but the goal “is to confirm or improve these forecasts”, said the premier.

Healthcare was also discussed during the meeting. “We set ourselves the goal of an overall reform that has as a priority the reorganization of services, the improvement of access to care, the enhancement of health professionals”, said the premier, recalling that an important part of the resources for the sector comes from the Pnrr. It is “over 15 billion, a great opportunity to improve our health system with tools that allow us to improve the system and not imagine cathedrals in the desert. It is important that there is a very serious dialogue on this”.