Rome - Prime Minister Mario Monti, boosted by positive
market reaction, takes a €30bn austerity package to parliament on Monday to
shore up Italy’s strained public finances and help stem a debt crisis
threatening to overwhelm the eurozone.
The cabinet approved the mix of tax rises, pension reforms
and incentives to boost growth in a three-hour meeting on Sunday, opening one
of the most crucial weeks since the launch of the euro more than a decade ago.
The package, dubbed a “Save Italy” decree by Monti, aims to
raise more than €10bn from a new property tax, impose a new tax on luxury items
like yachts, raise value added tax, crack down on tax evasion and bring forward
measures to increase the pension age.
Most editorials on Monday praised Monti for biting the
bullet in a difficult moment and for distributing the pain.
“There are times when you have to displease everyone and
certainly, this for Italy is one of those moments,” La Stampa said.
Corriere della Sera praised Monti for “participating in the
sacrifices” of Italians by renouncing his salary as prime minister.
Il Sole 23 Ore, Italy’s leading business daily, said the big
question was how would the markets react to the provisions announced on Sunday
night.
The spread between German and Italian 10-year bonds fell by
30 basis points and Milan’s blue chip index was up by about 2.3%.
However, newspapers that backed Monti’s predecessor, Silvio
Berlusconi, derided the measures. “The government is crying while it screws
us,” was the headline in the daily Libero.
The measures come before a crucial week in the debt crisis
with European leaders due to meet on Thursday and Friday in Brussels to try to
agree a broader rescue plan for the bloc.
Italy, the eurozone’s third-largest economy, has been at the
centre of the crisis since mid-year, when its borrowing costs began to approach
the levels which forced Ireland, Greece and Portugal to seek an international
bailout.
Packed into a single emergency decree, the measures take
effect immediately, before formal parliamentary approval, but Monti will have
to secure the backing of legislators within 60 days for them to remain in
force.
Monti, appointed at the head of a technocrat government to
replace Berlusconi last month, had been under growing pressure to come up with
concrete measures to address fears about Italy’s towering debt mountain.
He has held to Berlusconi’s pledge of a balanced budget by
2013, despite growing signs that Italy is heading into a recession that will
make it extremely difficult to make inroads into a public debt of 120% of gross
domestic product (GDP).
Deputy Economy Minister Vittorio Grilli said the measures
outlined on Sunday would allow the goal to be met despite a forecast that GDP
would contract by 0.4-0.5% in 2012.
Tears over welfare cuts
Monti, who brought forward cabinet approval of the measures
by a day to Sunday, is due to give a briefing to the foreign press in the
afternoon before presenting the measures to parliament in the afternoon.
The package is divided into €20bn of budget tightening and
an additional €10bn that will be pumped back into the economy in the form of
measures to help companies and boost growth.
European Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn welcomed
the “timely and ambitious” measures, and said the commission would carry out a
detailed assessment once it had received full details of the package.
Caught between the competing needs of boosting growth and
ensuring that cuts do not further depress a fragile economy, Monti’s technocrat
government risks growing opposition after an initial honeymoon period with a
public fed up with the scandals of the Berlusconi era.
“A package to cry over,” the daily Il Secolo XIX headlined
its front page on Monday, over a picture of Welfare Minister Elsa Fornero, who
broke down in tears while presenting measures that will mean an effective cut
in income for many pensioners.
Unions criticised the package and in an early sign of
possible opposition to the Monti government, FIM-CISL, a union representing
metal workers, said it would call a two-hour strike on Wednesday.
“Yet again, the sacrifices demanded fall mainly on salaried
workers and pensioners and on the weaker sections of society,” the union said.