Italy’s young industrialists blast govt, political class
(ANSA) – Naples, October 18 – Italy’s young industrialists blasted Premier Enrico Letta’s government as being “deaf” on Friday and said the country’s political class as a whole was ignorant.
Letta presented the budget for 2014 this week, but the package has been widely criticised by unions, some members of the parties supporting the grand-coalition government, and business leaders, who have said it is too timid with spending and tax cuts and does not do enough to boost growth.
Italy is struggling to emerge from its longest recession in two decades.
“If the government makes a triumph out of the fact that it managed to avoid raising taxes, it means it is deaf to the voice of the real nation,” said Jacopo Morelli, the head of the under-40s section of industry confederation Confindustria, at a meeting in Naples. Morelli said that Italy’s high tax burden and red tape are “killing firms”.
He went on to bemoan “too much ignorance in the country’s political class”, which he said “lowered the quality of thought and language” in public debate.
Morelli complained that reforms were “not even considered” in a parliament “that does not even have the dignity to give itself a decent electoral law”.
Moves to replace the much criticised current electoral system, which has been branded the “pigsty” and failed to produce a clear winner in February’s general election, have been held up by disagreements among the parties.