Premier Giorgia Meloni on Friday
announced that her cabinet has approved a decree with a package
worth three billion euros to help households and firms cope with
soaring energy bills.
"Today the government allocated three billion euros to tackle
the high bills," Meloni said in a video on social media while
Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti presented the decree at a
press conference after a cabinet meeting.
"We are talking about 1.6 billion euros for families and 1.4
billion for businesses".
She said the aid for families would be means tested so it is
targetting for those most in need.
She said families whose income and wealth are below a certain
threshold would get 200 euros in aid in the next quarter,
stressing that most households in Italy were under that
threshold.
Meloni said the aid will go up to 500 euros for very low-earning
families that already benefit from support for energy bills.
She explained that people will have to apply to get the support.
She also said that, once energy prices reach a certain level,
the State will forego any extra VAT revenue and allocate
additional VAT to reducing bills.
"We are also going to meet the needs of businesses," the premier
said.
"Specifically, we are cutting system charges for small and
medium-sized enterprises, thus ensuring a reduction in the next
bills of around 20%".
Giorgetti explained that the cost of the measures was being
covered by a special fund, the Cassa Servizi Energetici e
Ambientali (Energy and Environmental Services Fund), which means
Italy's budget deficits will not be increased by them.
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