Meloni’s government. Concerned by the crisis in Spain, it wants to speed up the Housing Plan. Funding in the budget and faster evictions

She does not want an outcome like that seen in Albania’s housing centres (“They’ll work”, but in reality only sporadically). Thus, looking at the government crisis that has erupted in Spain, triggered by street protests over the housing issue, Meloni wants to speed up the implementation of the Housing Plan. However, new measures to support housing will be included in the Budget Bill. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister, in a sort of ‘derby’ with Mayor Salis, is calling for the suspension of the 131 redundancies announced by the Ericsson site in Genoa, following discussions with CEO Andrea Missori. 

There is no doubt that housing will be a central issue in the upcoming election campaign. And so, as well as registering her voice trademark (“Io sono Giorgia Meloni”) with the EU Intellectual Property Office to prevent the use of clones and fakes, the Prime Minister intends to present herself to voters by highlighting a series of green initiatives. The Housing Plan has been a long time in the making. Approved in July, it was allocated six billion for the regeneration of 60,000 properties. To speed up the process, a commissioner (Felice Squitieri) was appointed in June and will remain in post until the end of 2027. But now things are really getting underway: local councils are drawing up lists of projects they would like to put forward for regeneration and subsequent letting at controlled rents. Some of them, such as Trieste (and the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region), are making swift progress on this. But whilst the Housing Plan has a longer-term timeframe (it could mobilise up to 10 billion euros over 10 years), work is also underway on other, more immediate fronts. These are proposals that the government would like to see incorporated into the Budget Bill. ‘Support for first-time home buyers’ was also a key theme in the centre-right’s previous election manifesto. Now, as Deputy Minister Leo has announced, efforts are being made to introduce incentives aimed primarily at those under 35. Other proposals include extending the scope for applying VAT to the sale and letting of properties carried out by property trading and management companies. There is also a proposal to lower the flat-rate tax to 5 per cent (put forward by Noi Moderati) for ‘long-term’ tenancy agreements or those specifically aimed at the under-35s. Deputy Prime Minister Salvini has promised an IMU exemption on first homes and in inland areas (as well as ways to circumvent European regulations on short-term lets, on which other members of the majority are also in agreement). In addition, there is a desire to reintroduce forms of ‘eco-bonuses’, namely tax deductions of between 55 and 65 per cent, for energy efficiency improvements. “This is a great opportunity to use a bit of fiscal leverage to invest in this area, in the true spirit of Forza Italia, because Europe will grant us a 7 billion deviation on energy matters for the next two years,” explains Forza Italia MP Alessandro Cattaneo. On this point, requests have been made to the government by ANCE, which organised a conference in the Chamber of Deputies entitled ‘Cities of the Future 2030–2050’.

In addition to fiscal measures, however, the government is placing great emphasis on the security implications linked to the housing issue. It is no coincidence that Salvini himself has claimed that over 6,000 properties will be cleared by 2022. At the same time, in the Senate’s Justice Committee, scrutiny has resumed of the so-called ‘Evictions Bill’, which aims to speed up the process of clearing illegally occupied properties – a measure the majority had envisaged running in parallel with the Housing Plan. Here too, however, the Deputy Prime Minister risks being upstaged by the Prime Minister, who has once again filled her social media feed with posts about evictions such as the one carried out in Tor Sapienza, Rome: “We are restoring law and order and safety.” Her voice during the election campaign cannot be cloned, but the soundtrack – for those who are not satisfied with the better-known “Il Cielo è sempre più blu” – is already there: “Building houses makes you feel faster and lighter.”