Lower house OKs budget
‘Tax cuts’
ROME, Dec 20, (Agencies): Italy’s lower house of parliament has approved a tax-cutting budget, the government said on Sunday, clearing the way for voting in the upper house Senate which must approve it by the end of the year. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has proposed cutting a tax on primary residences, reducing some corporate levies and raising spending on culture and on security to combat the militant threat to
Renzi
Europe.
Renzi’s government raised its budget deficit target last week to 2.4 percent of gross domestic product, above the 2.2 percent target it has pledged to the European Commission.
Before the deficit hike, the European Union said Italy’s plans risked breaking its rules and reserved a final judgement on whether to approve it until spring of 2016.
The budget document will move to the upper house on Monday, for reading and approval by senators.
Planned
After jihadists killed 130 people in Paris in November, Renzi said he planned to direct state funds towards bursaries for study, developing poor urban areas, and giving 18 year-olds money to spend on theatre and concert tickets.
Italy is lobbying the EU to let it exclude spending on the migration crisis, which looks set to bring 1 million people to Europe by land and sea this year, from deficit calculations.
Initial plans also included proposals to scrap levies on agricultural and industrial equipment.
Italy’s Five Star anti-establishment movement is enjoying a boom in popularity which presents a real threat to the ruling centre-left, a new poll showed Saturday.
Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party (PD) is not only losing favour, it must hope for the country’s fractious parties on the right to unite against it in order to assuage the Five Star peril.
An Ipsos survey of voter intentions showed that 31.2 percent of people interviewed would cast their ballots for the PD, while 29.1 percent of people favour the Five Star movement (M5S), founded in 2009 by a former comedian.
In the expected case of a run-off ballot, M5S would win, beating the PD by 52.5 percent of the votes to 47.5 percent.
Under a new electoral law brought in by Renzi, if no party wins 40 percent of the vote in a first round, a run-off ballot is held between the two frontrunners to decide which one should get a winner’s bonus to secure the majority needed.
Political
M5S, which celebrated a shock success in 2013’s general election to snap up 25.5 percent of the votes and become Italy’s second biggest political force, has been given a boost by the new face of the movement, Luigi di Maio, who has displaced its loud and truculent founder.
Di Maio, 29, now ranks second favourite among Italy’s political leaders, wooing 36 percent of voters to Renzi’s 38 percent according to the poll, which was carried out for the Corriere della Sera daily.
Matteo Salvini, the head of Italy’s anti-immigration Northern League party, comes in third with 32 percent but his party flags at 14.3 percent.
And the centre-right Go Italy party and its founder, former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, fare particularly badly, with the billionaire garnering just 21 percent of voter intentions and the party slumping to 10.8 percent.
According to the survey, the biggest risk to the PD lies in maintaining the status quo.
Voters were asked who they would cast their ballots for in a run-off between the PD and M5S, or PD and united right.
A right wing divided, as it is now, would hand victory to M5S in the run-off.
But should the Northern League, Go Italy and right-wing Brothers of Italy parties unite — to make a collective 31.3 percent — they would keep the M5S at bay.
The PD would face off with the united right at the run-off, rather than M5S, and the centre-left party would win, according to the poll, carried out on Dec 15 and 16.