Premier Giorgia Meloni on Wednesday
said she was "very proud and satisfied" of the 2025 budget bill
saying it was "serious and common sense".
She also thanked her deputy premiers, Foreign Minister Antonio
Tajani and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini, as well as Economy
Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti, speaking on the sidelines of a
European Union summit with Gulf States.
"The strategy remains the same", Meloni also said.
"We focus on employment, income, salaries, the health of
citizens, without increasing taxes and keeping finances in
order", she noted.
The premier went on to say "there were never as many resources
on healthcare" with healthcare funding set to "reach 136.5
billion in 2025 and 140 billion in 2026".
"We wanted to succeed in having resources that could be
redistributed to low-income families, but we didn't want to
signal that banks are adversaries, for this reason there was
cooperation", the premier also said, replying to a question on
measures introduced in the budget bill regarding banks and
insurance companies.
The government's draft budgetary plan (DBP) arrived at the
European Commission on Wednesday after the cabinet approved its
2025 budget bill with 30 billion euros worth of new measures
late on Tuesday.
Banks, which have enjoyed high profits in recent years thanks to
the ECB putting up interest rates, and insurance companies will
be called on to make a 3.5-billion-euro contribution to the
budget, which will to go the national health system.
The package also includes a 1,000-euro bonus for the parents of
newborns and maintains cuts in the labour-tax wedge for lower
earners that the government made in its 2023 budget law.
The DBP maintains the Quota 103 scheme that enables people to
start claiming a State pension before the retirement age of 67,
under certain conditions, if their age and number of years of
social-security contributions add up to 103.
It also includes incentives for people who have reached
retirement age to stay in work.
Around 2.3-2.4 billion euros of the financial coverage for the
budget comes from a review of public spending, with ministries
told to cut their budgets by around 5%.
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