Decree against expensive energy: ends, problems and unknowns
What goes and what is wrong with the decree against expensive energy. Giuseppe Liturri's analysis
“It's easy to ride the tiger, it's hard to get off”. This Chinese proverb seems to fit perfectly to describe the latest decree law passed by the government on Friday 18 and arrived in record time in the Official Gazette late on Monday evening (Law Decree 21 of March 21).
All the perplexities expressed during the reading of the draft, on the contrary, assume even greater clarity. The government does not know how to get off the energy market tiger that it wanted to ride irresponsibly, focusing only on the short term and blindly aligning itself with the strategy conceived by the EU and now the most hardened liberalists and advocates of the virtues of the market are transformed into relentless statists and followers of the regulatory virtues.
But the tiger appears difficult to tame from 25 cents (30 adding VAT) to cut excise duties on fuels until April 20 and a tax credit on energy and gas consumption (12% and 20% respectively, which go to 25 % and 20% for energy-intensive and gas-intensive companies). Especially when you have the ambitious goal of financing these measures, collecting 3,980 million from an “extraordinary solidarity levy” applied to all companies in the energy, gas and oil products sector on 30 June.
It seems to be back in 1919, when the Prime Minister Francesco Saverio Nitti tried in vain to introduce a new tax on war excess profits, something that was only partially succeeded by his successor Giovanni Giolitti who, with his law on the "avocation of profits of war ”, clashed with Luigi Einaudi who defined it as“ demagogic and unworkable ”.
And we must speak of demagogy, noting that, with respect to the draft circulated after the Council on Friday evening, the official text qualifies the "contribution" with the adjective "solidarity". Since words always make sense (especially when they appear at night) and we do not remember that "selfish" taxes ever existed, we allow ourselves to conjecture that this adjective (only apparently pleonastic) serves to protect the norm from predictable complaints of unconstitutionality. Just as the appearance of “Mister Prices” is imbued with demagogy with the “possibility of asking companies for data, news and specific elements on the reasons that led to the price changes. In order to stem speculative phenomena, on the occasion of particular situations of product price variations not determined by the normal market trend ".
The fig leaf of the word “speculation” appears to be the classic refuge for those who have not predicted ex-ante that a market with concentrated supply and rigid demand can normally generate large price fluctuations and therefore both design and operation require particular care. To "Mister Prices" is reserved the meager consolation of being able to impose sanctions on those who do not provide the data and then, once obtained, admit, paraphrasing Humphrey Bogart, that "it's the market, baby!". Not without having spent a total of about 3 million a year to create a mission unit at the Mise with 2 managers and 8 employees and having strengthened the ARERA organic plant with another 25 employees.
The same approach is also adopted with reference to the solidarity levy, which we would like to avoid being transferred downstream to the consumer – who would cast doubt on its constitutionality – by means of monthly communications sent to the Antitrust authority with the average purchase and production prices. and sale of electricity, gas and petroleum products. Once such data has been obtained, the Antitrust Authority can only intervene with sanctions if it detects restrictive agreements on competition or abuse of a dominant position, otherwise it is all lawful.
Admitted and not granted that it is possible to measure the fever, in the best of cases only antipyretics are administered to lower it, without however intervening on the underlying causes.
Numerous doubts expressed by insiders on the holding of government estimates. In this regard, the technical report to the decree, peremptorily states that it based its calculations on the electronic invoicing data of the companies involved, and believes that in the half-year October '21 – March '22, compared to the half-year October '20 – March ' 21, a taxable matter emerges for 39,800 million to be taxed at 10%. However, during the past few days, operators in the sector have struggled to find themselves with this order of figures, especially considering that until March 31st it is still possible to reduce the amount of the levy in a completely legitimate way. Among others, in a report by the investment bank JP Morgan on the Enel share, we read that the impact of the levy is "negligible, if not nil".
Other times and other expertise than 11 July 1992, a Saturday in which the Official Gazette announced to the Italians a levy of 6 per thousand on bank deposits existing at midnight on 9 July and the press conference of President Giuliano Amato served only to tell the story fait accompli.
We can console ourselves by observing similar upheavals underway in Spain, where Premier Pedro Sanchez from the columns of the Financial Times admitted the inconsistency of the palliatives and that the question must be resolved at the level of the European Council, where, however, the Member States in the two days of meetings just ended , they showed the usual division between Nordic pro free market and Mediterranean pro regulated market, and they decided not to decide. Yet another failed test of fire to understand whether the European institutions are really a tool for resolving divergences and asymmetries or, vice versa, extending them.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/decreto-contro-caro-energia-fini-problemi-e-incognite/ on Sun, 27 Mar 2022 07:45:45 +0000.