Renzi halved the number of EU infringement procedures. And our credibility went up’

Editorial in Il Tempo on 12/03/2019

Dear Editor,
Yesterday your paper rightly denounced the worrying increase in the number of EU infringement procedures opened against Italy since the start of the Conte government: already 14, at a rate of about 1.5 per month. And more will follow in the coming weeks. At the start of the Renzi government, Italy was the country with the most infringements of any major EU country. A real European disgrace for one of the founding states. At the end of February 2014, there were even 121 infringements against Italy, and the trend was one of continuous increase.

We decided that this situation could not continue for two reasons. First, we wanted to protect Italian citizens and taxpayers. And since so many infringements mean so many fines for Italy, reducing the number of infringements seemed to us to be a real duty to all Italians.

Secondly, we wanted to challenge many rules that we felt were too rigid and complicated, and to do this we needed to strengthen Italy’s credibility. And to be more virtuous in respecting the commitments that Italy has made and the rules that Italy has adopted, it is necessary to ask for them to be changed, as happened, for example, with the budgetary flexibility in 2015, with which we increased the possibility of financing new reforms and new investments.

The result was flexibility that also benefited the Conte government.

So we started working hard every day, completely reorganising the way Italy conducts its European policy, launching an intense legislative activity, carrying out missions in Brussels every week and engaging in tough negotiations with the European Commission. Work that was perhaps not very visible, that did not attract the attention of the press, but that produced undeniable results, precisely because they were objective and measurable.

In less than four years, we have halved the number of infringements against us, from 121 in 2014 to 59 in May 2018. In relative terms, according to EU Commission reports, from 2015 to early 2018 Italy was the most virtuous country in the entire EU, far better than any other major European country. This has never happened before. At the same time, we have solved so many cases of state aid, which fell from 24 at the beginning of the Renzi government to 4, and we have prevented and reduced cases of fraud against the EU budget by 60%. This action has saved us more than €2 billion in less than 4 years. More money for Italians in Italy and more credibility for Italy in Europe.

Unfortunately, regaining European and international credibility is very complicated: it requires a lot of commitment and perseverance. On the other hand, it is very easy to lose it: and this is what has happened to our country since the beginning of the Conte government.

Again, this is easily measurable, as you rightly pointed out in your pages yesterday. 112019 was supposed to be a good year, according to President Conte. Although spring is on its way, the European temperature for Italy is below 0, icy weather. For which we have already paid dearly in terms of spreads and rising interest rates for all of us.

Now that President Conte has taken over the European policy delegation, we hope he will start protecting Italian taxpayers by preventing new fines from raining down on us all. It would be nice to at least come to the conclusion that one swallow does not make a summer. It would be nice, because with this government, not even that can be seen in the Italian sky….