Prices and more, the government measures summarized by Draghi
What the Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, said in presenting at a press conference the measures approved by the government to counter the economic effects of the Russia-Ukraine war on energy prices and beyond
The Council of Ministers has taken really important steps to respond to the consequences of the war in Ukraine on our country.
We intervene to help citizens and businesses to sustain energy increases, with particular attention to the most needy families and to the most exposed production chains.
We improve some safeguards to protect our business system.
And let's strengthen the national reception system, to manage the influxes of refugees from Ukraine which are increasing daily and we expect to increase again in the coming weeks.
In total, the measures amount to € 4.4 billion – on top of the approximately € 16 billion we have spent since last summer to defend Italians from rising energy costs.
Unlike the previous measures, most of today's interventions are not financed by the public budget, but by companies in the energy sector.
We tax a part of the extraordinary profits that producers are making thanks to the increase in the costs of raw materials, and we redistribute this money to businesses and families in difficulty.
I just want to underline some of the main interventions.
Until the end of April, the price at the pump of petrol and diesel will be reduced by 25 cents per liter.
We are increasing the number of households protected from rising bills from 4 to 5.2 million and who will pay for energy like last summer. We have increased the Isee ceiling from 8 thousand to 12 thousand euros, thus including 1.2 million families more than in the previous provision.
We allow bills to be paid in installments for up to two years.
We increase tax credits on the cost of energy and gas in favor of energy-intensive and gas-intensive companies and we set up new ones for all companies that use electricity and gas.
We create funds to help the road transport, agriculture and fishing sectors.
We refinance the layoffs for companies in difficulty.
Let's improve the Golden Power tool, as Undersecretary Garofoli will explain in detail.
We strengthen the powers of ARERA and the Guarantor for Price Surveillance, so that they can know the details of the supply contracts of the producers, which it was really difficult to see and examine, and to be able to sanction phenomena of speculation.
We extend SACE's guarantee to ILVA, to allow the company to increase production and make up for steel shortages in the country.
For these last two measures, I want to thank Minister Giorgetti in particular.
In the coming weeks, we intend to take new steps to improve ILVA's ability to produce steel.
The inflation we observe in Europe – unlike in the United States – is essentially due to the performance of energy goods.
Solving this problem is complex: it requires an end to the crisis in Ukraine and a better diversification of supply sources, which is exactly what we have been doing for 10-15 days, especially with Minister Di Maio.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/prezzi-e-non-solo-le-misure-del-governo-sintetizzate-da-draghi/ on Sat, 19 Mar 2022 10:24:28 +0000.