The topic is very hot, and it is one of those that can shift opinions and consensus. Because the increase in the price of petrol – following the non-renewal of the Draghi government measure which partially cut excise duties, as well as speculation which the Guardia di Finanza is investigating — creates a serious problem for the government, and for Giorgia Meloni in particular. First of all because, despite the allies’ grumblings, it was she who did not want to intervene to control prices, a choice she claims: “To cut excise duties – this is an expense of 10 billion – we could not have increased the fund for healthcare , the audience of families for reduce household billsincrease the single allowance for children, create a “shopping cart”, finance the tax relief for new hires, the credit fund for SMEs. These are measures of social justice», unlike the cut in excise duties which would have «helped everyone without distinction» and the rich the most.
The promise
But the case becomes explosive because this time it is she who ends up directly at the center of a very tough controversy, because she is accused by the opposition of having lied, promising to cut VAT and excise duties during the election campaign, and now denying that she ever did. So yesterday it was a hard battle and rebate until the conclusion of the prime minister: “No promises.” The facts. Around noon Meloni decides to spread a “special” episode of his “Notes of Giorgia” on her social networks, entirely dedicated to the petrol theme. You do it, in a very irritated tone, to counter a “well-constructed media campaign”.
The video of 2019
And then he immediately attacks, explaining that he “makes a video of mine” (in which he called the excise duties on petrol “a shame” and demanded “that they be progressively abolished”) which, however, dates from 2019: “In the meantime the world has changed. I am not inconsistent and in this electoral campaign I have not promised that I would cut excise duties on petrol. I still think that the cut in excise duties is right, but we are dealing with reality and unfortunately we are facing an emergency situation that requires us to make some choices”. It is a pity, however, that it began to circulate shortly after an excerpt from the FdI electoral program of the last elections, which in point 17 provided for the “sterilization of state revenue from taxes on energy and fuel and automatic reduction of VAT and excise duties”.
The oppositions
Gold for the opposition. Everyone stands up to reproach Meloni for the “backtracking”, starting with the secretary of the Democratic Party Enrico Letta: “Today the government and the premier made the first real communication error, after weeks of tailwind. With the video in which he technically lies about the reduction of excise duties, the contradiction between what was said in the electoral campaign returns to the fore”. Carlo Calenda agrees, according to whom what Meloni says is “false”: “It could have been financed until March, like the other interventions, at a cost of 2.2 billion” as proposed by him. And for the M5S it is Giuseppe Conte who attacks: «Meloni in the recent electoral campaign, and not in the 2019 video, still promised. Grotesque mystification from the government» Meloni replies, this time in writing: «Some members of the opposition point out that in the FdI program there was, among the points, an item on the sterilization of state revenues on energy and fuel, with an automatic ” reduction of VAT and excise duties”. True, but «it means that if you have more income from the increase in fuel prices, you use it to lower taxes. But we didn’t have more income, of course. So it is a very different commitment from “we will cut excise duties”.
The structural cut
Beyond the past, on today Meloni says she does not want to underestimate the weight of the increases, reiterates the measures taken by the government (display of the average price in each vending machine, checks) and also says she is “strongly hopeful of the possibility that sooner or then we will be able to make a structural cut”, but this “needs a different situation, to get the economic growth of this nation back in motion”. And in any case, the current average price of petrol (around 1.8 euros) is not far off, indeed it is even lower – he says data in hand – than that of previous years but also months: “Why then did nobody say anything?”.
