southern time
twelve o’clock, March 22 2021 – 07:55
of Claudio De Vincenti
Cwith the Support Decree, the Government has prepared the measures and resources to manage the prolongation of the economic and social crisis due to the pandemic: an intervention that represents a breath of fresh air for the productive fabric and that faces situations of greater fragility, with repercussions important for the South. this is the necessary basis to face the two most important challenges on which the government will be judged, because it is decisive for the future of the country: the vaccination campaign that must take us out of the health emergency; the Recovery Plan which must lay the foundations for the post-pandemic recovery.
The oxygen to the productive fabric passes mainly through four types of instruments provided for by the decree. The first consists in the introduction in favor of companies and VAT numbers of a grant that covers a (limited) part of the loss of turnover suffered by them in 2020. The second instrument is the extension of social safety nets for employees (Cassa ordinary integration and in derogation) and the consequent significant increase in the allocation of resources for 2021 compared to those allocated by the budget law of the previous government.
And, in a logic always containing the negative effects of the crisis on employment, the possibility of renewing expiring term contracts without the need for a reason.
The third, which also plays a role in covering more fragile situations, consists of a set of indemnities for seasonal or intermittent or self-employed workers not required to pay VAT, with a particularly significant impact in the tourism, catering and entertainment sectors.
The fourth instrument significantly refinances the activities of local authorities, in particular Municipalities, Metropolitan Cities and Provinces, to compensate for the fall in tax revenues and the higher deficits of local public transport companies.
For situations of greater fragility, in addition to the measures I have mentioned and which obviously have repercussions – especially those on work and local authorities – also on this front, the decree provides for easier access to unemployment benefits, the refinancing of the income of citizenship and emergency income extension. In addition, it allocates important resources for interventions on the school, both in terms of providing greater safety conditions for face-to-face teaching, both in terms of student involvement and contrasting dispersion, and in terms of household endowments for distance learning. . And, finally, it increases the resources available to the Fund for the Third Sector, which plays an important role in dealing with situations of greater social difficulty.
The impact on the South of this set of measures can be easily read in watermark. Not only because the refinancing of citizenship income and emergency income affects areas of social suffering particularly present in the South. As well as the intervention on teaching conditions of particular importance for southern schools, to the point that the decree rightly provides for a appropriation specifically dedicated to reducing the lack of IT tools in the South. But also the measures to support seasonal and precarious workers in tourism, entertainment, catering and the possibility of renewing fixed-term contracts are very sensitive in the southern regions. The same is true for the redundancy fund – decisive in many crisis situations, from Ilva to Whirlpool – and for the non-repayable contribution, albeit limited, to medium-small businesses and VAT numbers for risk – stronger in the South. – the heavy decline of the productive and entrepreneurial fabric due to the current crisis.
There remains the problem of speeding up the procedures that hinder the speed of disbursement of resources to those who need them. The mechanism envisaged for contributions to companies and VAT numbers is going in the right direction: disbursement by the Revenue Agency on the basis of self-certification to be subjected to ex post control (not ex ante). A similar procedural acceleration would also serve for the redundancy fund and for seasonal and precarious allowances.
Therefore, the Sostegni Decree is good, the first breath of fresh air for economic activities and a buffering of the most acute situations of social suffering. Now the game is played on the speed and pervasiveness of the vaccination campaign and on the quality of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan which, compared to the inherited version, must be made much more robust in the choices of allocation of resources and in the procedures for carrying out interventions.
March 22, 2021 | 07:55
© Time.News