The Stabilicum, the Budget Bill and the reform of RAI. What lies ahead for MPs when Parliament resumes

In early August, as is traditional, MPs and senators wrap up their political work and go on holiday for around a month. This year, to be precise, Parliament will remain closed until 9 September, although individual committees will follow a different schedule, with some already due to convene on 1 September. When Parliament resumes, there will be many issues for MPs to revisit. Chief among these are the electoral law, the Budget Bill and the reform of the RAI. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni aims to pass the ‘Stabilicum’ by November, just a few months before the next general election. This will in fact be the fifth and final year of the parliamentary term for the elected representatives, with the government set to celebrate the milestone of becoming the longest-serving executive in the history of the Republic – a milestone that will be reached on 4 September – whilst MPs await 14 April, the date on which their pension contributions become payable.

Let’s start with the electoral reform. On 16 July in the Chamber of Deputies, following the rejection by around fifty maverick MPs and Vannaccia’s manoeuvres regarding preferential voting, the majority held firm in the secret ballot during the final vote on the Stabilicum, which was approved at first reading with 217 votes in favour and 152 against. In fact, two days earlier, thanks to the secret ballot, the centre-right had narrowly lost by a single vote on the proposal put forward by Fratelli d’Italia, Noi Moderati and the UDC, which would have introduced a preferential voting system with a fixed lead candidate without respecting gender parity.

It was precisely the alternation between male and female candidates that appears to have prompted several mavericks to vote against the amendment tabled in the Chamber of Deputies. Now, however, Meloni’s aim is to ensure the same scenario does not play out again in the Senate, where a secret ballot is not provided for. Following a lengthy internal debate within the majority, a summit at the Fratelli d’Italia headquarters in Via della Scrofa has eased tensions within the coalition: FdI, Lega, FI and Nm will propose to the Senate – where there is no provision for a secret ballot – the amendment already tabled in the Chamber of Deputies to introduce preferential voting, with a single change to further strengthen gender alternation which, according to reports, will be required in the new text to be observed at a ratio of 60 per cent to 40 per cent among the list leaders. If the reform is approved with the addition of this amendment, or others, it will mean that it will have to return to the Chamber of Deputies for a third reading, with the risk of facing the same scenario already seen in mid-July. Shudder.

The Vice-President of the Senate, Gian Marco Centinaio, has already commented on the timetable, announcing that the debate in the Chamber is scheduled to begin on 9 September “with no set closing times”, following the examination by the Constitutional Affairs Committee, which will begin in early September – the deadline for tabling amendments in both the committee and the Chamber is 1 September – and will continue on 11 and 14 September; meanwhile, the explanations of vote and the final vote on the reform are scheduled to take place in the Chamber on 15 September. The Prime Minister’s aim is to have this bill approved at its third reading in the Chamber of Deputies by October to avoid it coinciding with the Budget Bill. A failure to do so could lead to the early end of the parliamentary term, with the risk of holding elections under the Rosatellum, the current electoral system which, according to the Prime Minister and various opinion polls, would penalise the centre-right, particularly in the single-member constituencies of southern Italy. Although the natural expiry date would be October 2027, rumours are growing ever more persistent that the term might end early – specifically in mid-April, that is, four years and six months from the start, which is the right amount of time to qualify for a parliamentary pension.

There was talk of the budget bill. This year’s will be the Meloni government’s fifth and final Budget Bill before the upcoming elections, which, as always, must be approved by 31 December. But there could be a change compared to recent years, and it was Lorenzo Fontana himself who announced it. Speaking at the ceremony where the parliamentary press presented the ‘Ventaglio’, the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies raised the possibility of a genuine two-stage process between the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate: “I have already begun meeting with the Ministry of Economy and Finance to try to establish a timetable that will ensure the broadest possible debate in Parliament and, if possible, also allow for two readings. We would like to ensure that this Budget Bill, which is likely to be very complex, can potentially be dealt with in this way.” As we mentioned earlier, in recent times, it has been standard practice for only one chamber to examine and amend the Budget Bill, whilst the other has confined itself to a general debate and the final vote on the entire bill, before swapping roles the following year. This year, the debate will begin in the Chamber of Deputies.

However, there are two dates to mark in red. Before proceeding with any kind of assessment, we will have to wait until 22 September, when the final certification on the 2025 deficit-to-GDP ratio will be issued. If it remains at 3.1 per cent, as estimated by Eurostat in April, Italy will not exit the infringement procedure that began in 2024 and there will be less scope for policy measures. The situation would be different if the ratio were to fall below 3 per cent. The other key date is 15 October, the deadline by which the government must submit the Budget Planning Document to the European Union. Whilst it is still too early to know exactly what measures Parliament will adopt and to what extent they will feature in the Budget Law, Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti has already set out a direction. During his address to the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate on 6 August, when he officially announced the activation of the national safeguard clause, the League minister indicated that, for energy, Italy would seek the maximum level of flexibility allowed by the EU – namely 0.6 per cent – whilst for defence, the figure would be capped at 0.9 per cent.

Taken together, these measures thus make up exactly the total 1.5 per cent quota permitted under EU rules. All measures of a temporary or emergency nature are excluded from the scope of the safeguard. The Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) has specified that measures aimed at temporarily alleviating the crisis, or direct and indirect subsidies – such as the reduction in excise duties on fuel – cannot be counted towards this figure. Mr Giorgetti noted that the assessment of the request to activate the clause will take place in September, whilst its formalisation will occur at the October Ecofin meeting. Following the Council’s recommendation, a similar approach will be taken to the so-called budgetary deviation procedure, on which Parliament will be called upon to deliberate in the run-up to the next budget.

Still on the subject of the Budget Bill, Transport Minister Matteo Salvini has already announced his intention to levy a tax on the profits of the major banks, drawing inspiration from Pedro Sánchez’s Spanish model: “We will ask for a contribution equal to 5 per cent of profits for three years, and we will ask this not of all banks but of the top ten,” said the League secretary. Although the banking association, led by Antonio Patuelli, is adopting a wait-and-see approach and has not yet taken an official position – other than reiterating that it considers the agreement signed last year with the government to be valid – namely a commitment to provide multi-year contributions, without any new one-off taxes, to contribute to financial stability and economic solidarity.

And with the resumption of parliamentary business in September, the debate on ‘differentiated autonomy’ – approved in June 2024 – will also begin anew. This is the government’s sole major remaining promise following its defeat in the referendum and the abandonment of the ‘premierato’ system, though certain provisions of the legislation have been declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court. After the Senate had approved the resolutions on the preliminary agreements for Liguria, Lombardy, Piedmont and Veneto on 16 July, it was the Chamber of Deputies’ turn five days later. The measure essentially devolves powers to the regions in four areas: civil protection, the professions, supplementary pensions and the coordination of public finance in the health sector. The preliminary agreements therefore commit the government to continuing negotiations with the four regions in accordance with the provisions of the Calderoli Law and the Constitutional Court’s ruling. The text must now be approved by the Council of Ministers in the form of individual bills for each of the regions involved and then voted on by Parliament; however, the governors of two southern regions – Antonio Decaro of Puglia and Roberto Fico of Campania – are already preparing to lodge an appeal with the Constitutional Court.

Another issue awaiting Parliament is the reform of Rai. For months now, this bill has been stalled in the Senate’s Eighth Committee. The Supervisory Committee is, in fact, deadlocked over the appointment of Simona Agnes, whom Forza Italia would have liked to see as the company’s chairperson. However, Antonio Tajani’s supporters have never managed to convince their League allies, effectively leading to this prolonged deadlock. This deadlock led, on 2 July, to the resignation not only of Chairwoman Barbara Floridia (Five Star Movement), but also of all 16 opposition MPs sitting on the Supervisory Committee. This move had been threatened for months and comes just as the reform of the broadcaster is about to be passed. However, the resignations appear to signal something else: namely, that this parliamentary term is truly drawing to a close. Confirming this, almost immediately, came the reaction from the majority councillors: “Irresponsible Left – we’re resigning too!” All this has happened precisely during the weeks in which discussions on the reform of Rai are continuing. On this matter, as we write here, the Minister for the Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti, has set out several red lines: “The corporate model cannot be radically altered.”

On 6 August, the parliamentary committees concluded the preliminary examination of the consolidated bill on cinema reform, and the final vote in the Chamber is scheduled for 9 September, during the Venice International Film Festival, as announced by Federico Mollicone, Chair of the Chamber of Deputies’ Culture Committee. On 21 July, meanwhile, the anti-Semitism bill resumed its passage through the Chamber of Deputies’ Constitutional Affairs Committee after having been approved at the end of March in the Senate, where a compromise had been reached on a bill introducing into Italian law the definition of anti-Semitism formulated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which was strongly championed by Democratic Party Senator Graziano Delrio. However, the Democratic Party was divided on this point because that definition was considered too broad, to the extent that Democratic Party Senator Andrea Giorgis was tasked by Francesco Boccia – the party’s leader in the Senate and a staunch supporter of Secretary Elly Schlein – with finding a compromise between the party’s various viewpoints and presenting a different bill. In the end, in March, the text referring to the IHRA definition was approved in the Senate, with the PD abstaining; however, six members of the PD voted against their group’s position, including Delrio.

Also in the Chamber of Deputies, but this time in the 13th Agriculture Committee, the draft bill on hunting – first tabled by Lucio Malan, leader of the Fratelli d’Italia group in the Senate – has been submitted for consideration; it was approved by the Senate on 23 June 2026. The text amends the 1992 law and aims to redefine the balance between animal welfare and hunting. In the Senate, meanwhile, the bill proposing the recognition of equines as companion animals, along with other provisions for their protection and the promotion of measures for the conversion of livestock farms – proposed by MPs Eleonora Evi, Patrizia Prestipinio and Debora Serracchiani – was assigned for consideration on 20 February. However, scrutiny by the 13th Agriculture Committee has not yet begun. Also in the Senate, the 8th Environment Committee has been tasked with scrutinising the draft decree – approved by the Council of Ministers on 7 August – for its conversion into law, concerning urgent provisions on the mandatory compostability of certain types of packaging. Once proceedings resume, the Senate is also expected to approve the authorisation for the government to act on sustainable nuclear energy, given that the Eighth Environment Committee concluded its proceedings on 22 July following the Chamber of Deputies’ approval on 4 June.

In short, between the RAI reform, the Stabilicum and the Budget Bill, there are several issues awaiting MPs upon their return from the summer recess, but there is still a small piece of news: whilst the MPs have gone on holiday, a number of technicians have remained at Montecitorio and have begun installing new-generation, fully digital, high-definition cameras that improve the quality of audiovisual footage inside the Chamber with a new 16:9 aspect ratio.