Meloni’s stance. Concerned about the cost of petrol, consideration is also being given to adjusting VAT. The ‘no’ to Salvini

It is as if the deficit were shedding autumn leaves. It could end like this: Italy requests the activation of the energy safeguard clause, the NEC (14 billion euros); Europe interprets the ISTAT figures flexibly; and the government sticks to its targets. Only Salvini has not yet noticed the latest development: there is a Europe willing to extend a helping hand and a Meloni who is baring her claws (did you see them on Bruno Vespa’s programme?). There is a Europe distressed by petrol prices, now spiralling out of control, and a Meloni at Palazzo Chigi weighing up every possible scenario: what happens if the price rises yet again? Take it as an extreme thought—one not shared by the experts or the economists at the Ministry of Economy and Finance—but if the situation were to spiral further out of control, there would be no choice but to adjust VAT. Cars are coming to a standstill, Europe is grinding to a halt, and the coffers are running dry. We’re even running out of ideas.

The Competition Decree has been on hold since July and has not yet been rubber-stamped. The reason? Some say it is because the necessary funding is lacking, whilst others insist it is merely a matter of technical issues. In the Chamber of Deputies, the day after the final was lost in the 90th minute—the possible (early) exit from the infringement procedure—Giulio Tremonti sits and ponders this decimal point, and the wisdom that technocrats sometimes employ to rein in the bestial instincts of the election campaign. Tremonti recalls that in his day there was a way to balance the books. They were called ‘le beferate’ (after Attilio Befera, the former director of the Revenue Agency), and they were the alchemical tricks that allowed the decimals – the little hedgehogs of the public finances – to return to their rightful place. What if that decimal point had been sought out? Tremonti smiles and limits himself to a wry grin, at that very thought which Giovanni Tria, another Minister for the Economy, has made clear. Sometimes a decimal point can prove to be the best ally of those who wish to keep the accounts in order. In Italy, there is said to be a party of melancholic madmen – as Salvemini called them – who still believe in the integrity of the budgets and in the beauty of speech. Its members would include Giorgetti, Freni, Cuperlo (go and look up his quote about Guccini, spoken in the Chamber) and that Marattin, secretary of the Liberal Democratic Party, who reminded Giorgetti during Question Time: ‘Minister, you must realise that populism creeps in everywhere’. He is referring to the IRPEF cut that Giorgetti had promised before abolishing road tax (a structural cut), prior to these ISTAT figures – the refuge where the government’s new ‘untouchables’ take shelter. A day has passed and we are moving from ‘regret’ – again from Giorgetti – to a bitter aftertaste (the expression is from Francesco Filini, FdI’s strategist), who asks: ‘What happens if next year, as is likely, Istat revises its estimates?’. The question arises: can the statistician who conducts the assessment—and who thereby prevents a country from exiting the infringement procedure ahead of schedule—be punished? This is likely to become one of the next battles: whoever ‘gets the figures wrong’ will pay. And this is where the issue of error comes into play. Insiders at Istat tell us that, to be honest, certain expenditure by Ferrovie and Anas (amounting to six billion) has not been included in the calculations, which would have pushed the figure from 3.1 to 3.4 per cent, whilst at the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), they politely point out that those 2.3 billion (the cause of the decimal point) go directly into a register that does not pass through the MEF. In short, it could not be verified, or rather, ‘we could not have known’.

What is known is that Salvini continues to call for a budgetary deviation that Meloni does not want. Nor does Maurizio Casasco, Forza Italia’s economic spokesperson—a man with infectious cheerfulness—want it; he explains to Il Foglio: “Making a deviation means incurring debt. What’s the point of that after having kept our accounts in order? I am certain that Europe will grant us the flexibility we need.” And what about Salvini’s party? Casasco, who is a bit of a genius (when he was president of Torino Football Club, he issued five ‘number one’ membership cards to please five ‘Granata’ fans, who thus believed they were all number one), notes that “Salvini, at the end of the day, which party is he in? He’s in Giorgetti’s party”. Which is the party opposed to the deviation; indeed, as Giorgetti suggests, it is in favour of “interpretation”The NEC can be activated thanks to an interpretation by Europe. A bit like Istat, which, with its statistics, merely interprets that Istat’s figures (says Giorgetti) “have a significant impact on national budgetary decisions in that they modify, ex post, the parameters used in the European fiscal surveillance procedure”. Istat officials (incidentally, its president, Francesco Maria Chelli, is said to be held in high regard by Mantovano) are, shall we say, unlikely to have an easy time of it, but even that matters little. Will the deviation go ahead or not? Marco Osnato, chairman of the Chamber of Deputies’ Finance Committee – the ‘Quintino Sella’ of FdI – comes to the rescue. Like Marchionne (“but a holiday from what?”), he asks: “But a deviation to do what? No. It won’t happen”. In the United States, a gallon of petrol has reached 4.4 dollars; in Italy, on the motorways, it is already 2.5 euros per litre. Rather than a price adjustment, what is needed is a well (like St Patrick’s).