All the political, economic and bureaucratic flaws of the anti-relocation rule
Because I criticize the draft anti-relocation decree. Gianfranco Polillo's analysis
Giuliano Cazzola has analyzed , in great detail, all the contradictions of the draft anti-relocation decree. So why go back there? Only to highlight a cultural union – that between the 5 stars and the left of the Democratic Party – which moves in a universe a thousand light years away from the principles that should regulate relations between the state and the market. If this were the case, the consequences would be inevitable and the draft decree itself, still not finalized, would be practically unemendable.
The main contradiction is already evident in article one: a rule, so to speak, of a programmatic nature. In the version available to us, we grant closing freedom only if it is in the presence of "a balance or economic-financial imbalance that makes it likely the crisis or insolvency." In all other cases, a complex administrative procedure would be triggered aimed at limiting, on a social level, the effects of the company closure.
At first glance, the norm seems to be characterized by an almost surgical precision. In fact, we start from the corporate crisis, but only on condition that it manifests itself in an imbalance. Let's start with this aspect. How large does this imbalance have to be to activate the procedure? The problem is not secondary. Since only in the presence of this requirement is the company allowed, albeit with a thousand constraints, to close the factory.
According to the law, it is envisaged that this imbalance can be both of an equity and economic-financial nature. In the first case, a sort of parameter must therefore be identified. A kind of Tier 1, already in place for banks. As is well known, it measures the ratio between the amount of part of the assets (equity capital, reserves and retained earnings) and risk-weighted assets (especially loans granted). In the case of companies, due to their wider range of action, while the first size can be deduced from the accounting books, the second is very uncertain. Which element of the liabilities should be considered?
It will be said: it will be seen on a case-by-case basis. A non-answer that introduces a further element of uncertainty. Just think of the inevitable discussions: on the one hand, the company that will seek bureaucratic legitimacy to leave the playing field. On the other hand "the structure for the business crisis" which will do everything to demonstrate that that critical threshold has not been reached. What then this new structure of the Mise carries within itself the necessary potential, is something to be demonstrated. It was established in 2007, but the relative decree, necessary for its establishment, was only passed on March 9, 2021. Not exactly a priority for the country's industrial policy.
It is even more difficult to identify the threshold of the economic-financial imbalance. While the balance sheet has more of a static nature, measurable in a relationship between the items in the balance sheet. The economic-financial one is of a more uncertain nature. It can manifest itself with marginal changes in the income statement, capable of anticipating that crisis which, only with the passage of time, can have a financial reflection. So who will decide if that halfway point has been reached? The company or the ministerial structure?
The thing is further complicated by two elements. The crisis can only be determined by an economic event linked to the particular sector in which the company operates. Again, there may be a conflict of positions between the company and the ministerial structure. The first that invokes the initiation of an irreversible dynamic. The second that plays down. But what a crisis in the sector, it is only a passing cloud. All complicated by the fact that the norm limits itself to indicating the only probability of a crisis. Since divination skills are scarce, the game of discretion becomes prevalent.
As can be seen, the investigation phase itself is undermined by such contradictions as to be able to fuel an infinite dispute. But suppose that, in the end, the ministerial structure gives its endorsement to the firm's decisions. Yes: we are in the presence of such an imbalance as to justify the closure of the plant. From that moment on, for the relative management, who want to avoid the payment of sanctions, a real path of war begins.
Under the combined provisions of Articles 2 and 3, they must submit a plan for the reabsorption of the redundancies. Like? Their relocation to other companies, the whole panoply of social safety nets (from reintegration to training). Sale of company branches to safeguard levels, albeit reduced, of employment (more reasonable request). Conversion of the production site also "for socio-cultural purposes in favor of the territory concerned". Tasks that, in truth, have little to do with the company's core business. Since these are skills that pertain more to a programmer than to an operational structure, such as the company one.
What will be the consequence of all this? Companies wishing to invest in Italy will have to equip themselves to deal with the eventuality of a change in management policy. Should they decide, for various reasons, to have to abandon their old settlement, they will have to take into account the additional burden linked to the disposal. A burden not only economic, but administrative due to the procedural steps indicated in the decree. Which explains, as Giuliano Cazzola rightly pointed out , why in France an address, in many ways similar, has been rightly quashed by the Constitutional Court.
Final result: the further contraction of investments by companies of a certain size, with more than 250 employees. As a tribute to that "little is beautiful" (but when?) Still very popular among the 5 stars and a part of the PD. All this must lead to the conclusion that there can be no barrier to mismanagement by some potentates, be they entrepreneurial or administrative? This is not our thinking. Abuses must still be punished, but without causing havoc. In any case, the old principle is valid, according to which the rules (except the penal ones) regulate the physiology of the system. While the draft of the decree is all focused on a pathology which, fortunately, only concerns some cases. Some of which could have been foreseen expansion and, therefore, neutralized from the beginning.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/tutte-le-magagne-politiche-economiche-e-burocratiche-della-norma-anti-delocalizzazioni/ on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 09:04:23 +0000.