By Silvia Marchetti
ROME (MaceNews) – Rome’s government is expected to clear by the end of October a key thorny competition law aimed at supporting investments, a law which is likely to further raise tensions among ruling allies, according to coalition sources.
The decree, which was meant to be initially approved ahead of the summer, has already been delayed to avoid the recent municipal elections. They took place last week and could fuel contrasts between government parties locally running against each other.
“Premier (Mario) Draghi has bought time, waiting until the electoral campaign was over and the ballots were cast,” said a Democratic official. “But now we need to speed up the implementation of key structural reforms and meet deadlines set out in our post-COVID recovery plan funded by the European Union. Recent delays, due to political reasons, risk watering down reforms and making them weaker.”
Sources said the competition law is aimed at ensuring “fair game” in key investments in ports, telecommunications and the national power grid, and at boosting deregulation in other consumer services as per the European Union’s Bolkestein directive approved in 2006 and not yet fully implemented in Italy.
“The goal is to increase the level of liberalism of our economy and to review certain state concessions in strategic and lucrative sectors,” said another source. “We need to re-think the role of the state in guaranteeing services, and its relation with private companies and operators when it comes to setting-up public tenders and making sure there’s a fair access to the free market for all firms and projects.”
Ruling parties are currently at odds over which sectors should be liberalized – and to what extent – with the far-right League party so far blocking any attempt by Draghi to reform state concessions for beach facilities and market vendors, which according to League party sources are “untouchable”.
Such facilities are usually handed down among family relatives across generations and not through open tenders, as the European commission has repeatedly requested they be. The League, frustrated because it has suffered a drop in support at the recent local elections in key cities such as Rome and Milan, is ready “to do whatever it takes to avoid a crazy beach liberalization”, as one League official has called it.
Two weeks ago the League refused to support a key tax overhaul reform endorsed by its ruling allies which contains a review of the taxable value of Italy’s land registry. Were the League to oppose also the competition law, it would lead to further destabilizing the government.
“We should be running to approve key reforms, needed for an efficient use of the European direct aid, and instead we’re faltering because of the League,” said a 5 Stars Movement source. “It’s quite clear that its battle over beach concessions is just a way to defend a consolidated, but wrong, acquired privilege of a specific group of service providers, which must end. This just further proves how there’s no place for the League in this pro-change government.”
The competition law is expected to introduce stricter but more transparent rules for public tenders procedures and cut red tape weighing on investments, reducing the risk that excessive bureaucracy costs scare firms away in post-pandemic recovery.
An overhaul of competition is a cornerstone of Italy’s EUR200 billion worth recovery plan set to be implemented by 2026.
Over the next few years the EU aid could trigger an overall 4% rise in growth, provided the funds are timely and efficiently deployed and structural reforms implemented at the same time, sources warned, adding how boosting liberalism will affect every key mission of the recovery plan.
The core of the plan is the so-called Green Revolution and Ecological Transition, for which a new ministry has been specifically created, which will benefit from EUR69 billion aimed at boosting waste recycling, energy efficiency of pubic buildings such as hospital and schools, and research in the use of hydrogen as alternative energy.
Another top priority are investments in digital innovation and infrastructures and in the ecological transition to a more inter-connected, ‘green’ economy. Greater competition will involve high-speed internet providers with the goal to have all Italians connected by 2026 and to bring ultra-fast broadband networks to 8 million families and businesses over the next few years.
Roughly €31 billion will be invested in strategic infrastructures for sustainable mobility including the extension of high-speed railway, road maintenance and ‘green’ environmental-friendly ports.
A total of approximately €49 billion will go into a digital revolution of enterprises, the public administration and tourism.
“To be able to do all this, in the right way, Italy needs firms which are more competitive, a more transparent access to the free market and smoother investments procedures,” said the Democrat source. “But in order to do so we need to prepare the framework within which economic operators can interact and provide the best services to people.”
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Contact this reporter” silvia@macenews.com
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