“Taxing windfall profits solves nothing”, says Boscaini (Confindustria)

A cap on those profiting from the energy crisis: could the taxation of windfall profits be summarised in this way? “I am neither in favour of nor opposed to this measure,” Raffaele Boscaini, president of Confindustria Veneto, tells Il Foglio. “It is legitimate to question the nature of these revenues. Care must be taken, however, to identify them correctly. And not to lose sight of the energy agenda that could truly revitalise our country.” At the moment, the initiative is being called for most vociferously by Elly Schlein: enough of stopgap solutions, warns the PD secretary, pressing the Meloni government in particular. “But this is a stopgap solution, whatever anyone says. It is purely an emergency measure. If the short-term aim is to ease the burden of Italians’ energy bills, that’s fine. If, on the other hand, these windfall profits become a pretext for making a political statement, thereby diverting efforts away from more complex long-term measures, then it becomes a problem.”

Let’s start with the agenda. It is a fact that the major oil companies are making a fortune, with overall profitability justified solely by the geopolitics of raw materials. And this is a widely discussed issue at EU level too. “It is right that this should be the case,” agrees Boscaini. “It means there is a collective consciousness that extends beyond our borders. Now, Italy may even introduce a tax on windfall profits at national level, pre-empting the European Union,” as is currently being discussed in various forums, whilst Brussels assesses what steps to take for a coordinated approach. “However, we need certainty regarding the rules and agreed parameters that will be used to identify these windfall profits precisely – where is the threshold set? It is possible to achieve this, but it is not that simple, and we must not leave ourselves open to the ambiguities involved. We are facing an exceptional situation; we can discuss an extraordinary levy to help households and SMEs, but precisely for this reason it must be time-limited. Our policy priority is not how much to tax energy companies, but how much our businesses pay for energy, leading them to lose more and more in terms of overall competitiveness. And here, the debate on windfall profits risks becoming disproportionate. It is being talked about far too much in relation to the actual scale of its potential impact on people’s lives.”

What does that mean? “The reduction in energy bills would be a temporary relief,” continues the appeal from the Veneto-based Confindustria representatives. “For years, however, we have been calling for a long-term energy strategy to be drawn up: from the issue of nuclear power to that of cost discrepancies depending on the source and country of supply. These are complex issues, but that does not mean they should be left on the back burner. Yet politicians are dragging their feet, because these are also highly divisive issues. The underlying problem is that the timeframe for improving business performance is much longer than a single parliamentary term. And it goes beyond ideology. Rather than agonising over stopgap solutions, we should be asking ourselves: do we really want to become competitive again?” When it comes to procrastination, however, we’re always excellent. Even in our responses.