Here is the data that makes the government argue

In 2024, Italians will see about 83 billion euros of their contributions lost. In fact, our country will have to spend a lot more on interest on its public debt, which continues to rise rather than shrink, despite the expected slight improvement in growth this year. This emerges from the latest economic forecasts issued by the European Commission in the spring. The estimates, combined with the Sword of Damocles of EU breach measures to be activated in the summer, make a new season of austerity loom on the horizon. They also explain increasingly strong tensions within the majority over fiscal policies, from super bonuses to the sugar tax.

According to Brussels, Italy’s GDP is expected to grow by 0.9 percent in 2024, which is slightly better than expected in the winter. On the other hand, growth in 2025 is expected to be more contained than the latest estimate (1.1%). Undoubtedly, investments in Pnrr are a driving factor, along with exports. But EU recovery funds are doomed to run out, and the bloc’s frugal governments, despite pressure from many quarters, especially from our shores, have no intention of repeating the recovery fund experience. Even more so given the situation in Germany, whose economy remains stuck (Brussels estimates growth of only 0.1% for 2024, which is even lower than previous forecasts).

So far, the countries that have made the most of the European funding opportunity for photography are Spain, Greece and Portugal, which registered growth twice that of Italy (respectively 2.1% and 2.2% and 1.7%). The south is leading the economic expansion in Europe and the eurozone, but Italy is unable to keep up with other countries that were previously pig-stricken. Moreover, compared to Madrid, Athens and Lisbon, ours is the only country unable to reduce its public debt: in 2024, it will rise to 138.6 percent of GDP, and in 2025 it could hit the wall again by 140 percent. . According to the committee’s expectations.

In the absence of sustainable growth, and with interest rates expected to remain high for a long time to come, for Italy this means that interest spending will eat up an increasingly larger slice of GDP (4 percent in 2024, Brussels estimates). Moreover, the return of the Stability Pact should lead to the opening of an excessive deficit infringement procedure against our country in the summer: if this happens, the estimate is cuts in public spending of between $9 and $10 billion per year. But there are among experts who warn that deeper budget cuts may be necessary to prevent public debt from exploding between now and the end of the decade.

The blanket for who will rule Italy in these years, in other words, is not short, but very short. Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti is trying to contain costs as much as possible, but apart from the operation related to the super bonus (which has already caused a crisis) Divides In the majority between Lega and Fdi on the one hand, and Forza Italia on the other hand, there is a race to save and find new sources of income (e.g. Sugar taxHe hasn’t left yet. Brussels reported that the spending review led to a small cut of 0.1 percent of GDP (about 2 billion). The Commission warned that “without policy change”, that is, according to the measures planned so far, the public deficit should “rise again in 2025”.