Gas in Amsterdam at the opening of the session falls below € 300 per MWh. Futures contracts for the month of September yield 13.03% to 295.01 euros per MWh.
The government has launched a first complex survey to find the funds to be used for new aid to families and businesses against expensive energy. A difficult game full of unknowns because at the moment, it is explained in the Executive circles, there is still no precise idea on how to recover the necessary money after a heavy intervention made with the aid decree bis of over 14 billion euros. Surely there will be no intervention with a deviation.
There are two parameters to be evaluated: the cost of bills and the methods of their payment, and any intervention will in any case concern the fourth quarter after the control measures decided in the previous measures.
The dramatic situation of companies, which are eating up their revenues to meet expenses, and the need to go to the rescue of those among the citizens who are no longer able to bear the costs is a national priority.
For this reason, all possible interventions are being examined, in agreement with the operators in the sector. But that we can define something within the next week seems very complicated. The government is also ready to evaluate the proposals that come from politics, but it is not possible to hypothesize massive interventions from now on. Although some ideas are starting to spin. Two hypotheses are considered on the tax credit for energy-intensive and gas-intensive companies, which is in force until September: either the extension until the end of the year or an increase in the rate. The discounts on fuels expiring on 20 September will probably be extended, while there would be several doubts, also of a technical nature, on the possibility of an intervention for the redundancy fund in favor of the workers of the companies that have to stop or reduce production due to expensive power. On the family side, the payment in installments of bills could be strengthened.
One certainty is that we will have to wait for the August data on tax revenues. The international macroeconomic situation certainly weighs heavily, with Germany in a recessionary phase (-0.6%) together with the US and Great Britain. On the other hand, an Italy that is growing (with a +1), a sort of happy island, is always reasoned in circles by the Executive in explaining the general situation, even above expectations. And if Rome were to use the deviation tool in a growth phase, it is one of the fears, the markets would not understand it.
Also taking into account the previous operations with total interventions already carried out on this front of 48 billion, all self-financed: the value of two maneuvers, it is still argued, made in normal times, to which the October budget law must be added, which must be launched by the government that will take office after the elections. Too many critical issues for the markets, already worried about the difficulties that Italy could have in repaying the debt.
The fact remains that to satisfy the demands and expectations of the parties it would take at least an additional twenty billion, it is estimated in spans, and the new tax revenues – even these at the moment are rough estimates – could provide, perhaps, only a few billion. Too little to define an articulated and consistent aid project.
In the background, among the hypotheses, there are still those who insist on the increase of the tax on the extra-profits of energy companies. A hypothesis that still remains a road full of obstacles.
Other arguments concern the possible container of the new measures. There is talk of a new decree but also of an amendment to the aid dl bis that should arrive in the Senate, for conversion into law, on September 6.
Source: Ansa
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