The European Commission takes “note of the new measure adopted by the Council of Ministers on September 16,” namely the exemption for 2027 from the tax for small engine cars and motorcycles, says a spokesperson for the EU executive, adding that “the Commission services will assess the measure in light of the 2026 country report and the 2026 country-specific recommendations, in the context of the upcoming 2027 European semester.”
Regarding the resources of the Recovery and Resilience Facility “it is important to remember that the Rrf is a results-based instrument, under which payments to Member States are made based on milestones and targets achieved.”
Codacons challenges the numbers
“On the car tax, the government and some consumer associations are spreading numbers that seem more useful for the lottery game than to understand the real impact of the measure for the community.” This is emphasized by Codacons, which had immediately expressed doubts about the data provided by the executive and relating to the pool of vehicles affected by the tax cut from 2027. “Just yesterday we highlighted how the numbers did not add up: 70% of the cars that, according to the government’s first estimate, would have benefited from the exemption clashed with data on the Italian vehicle fleet, which according to the annual Aci-Istat report counts 41.8 million cars and 7.9 million motorcycles,” it explains. “And after the doubts raised by Codacons, the Mit note arrived where, magically, there is a multiplication of cars that will benefit from the farewell to the tax, with the potential pool rising from 14.5 to 24.6 million euros.”
A growth in numbers that “would bring the potential cost of the tax measure to rise to 3.4 billion euros, considering that to understand the average value of the car tax in Italy, the revenue of the Regions, 7.1 billion euros in 2025, must be related to the number of vehicles circulating in Italy for tax purposes, about 51 million according to Aci, equal to an average car tax of about 141 euros,” concludes Codacons.
Thus Minister Giorgetti
“The coverage for the exemption in 2027 from the tax on motorcycles and small engine cars will partly come from “Pnrr funds” that the Italian State borrowed from the European Commission, paying them, and which constitute “non-reallocable savings,” as the deadlines have expired. And of these funds, which are “national money” and no longer “European resources,” the government and the Italian Parliament dispose “as they see fit.” This is stated by the Minister of Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti, in Dublin on the sidelines of the Eurogroup and the informal Ecofin.
“As should be known, but is not known to everyone – he recalls – a good part of the Pnrr funds were not free. They are loans (loans, ed.) paid by the State budget. On the unused amounts of the loans, which obviously will not be taken from Europe, budget spaces are freed up.” And those, he clarifies, “are the savings compared to projects that have been carried out and on which savings remain. So, they are national money, not Pnrr resources or European resources. It is a normal coverage, like all coverages on the national budget.” The European Commission, he continues, “says: theoretically a State, after having requested one hundred billion of Pnrr, could also return fifty or use thirty, or use seventy and return the rest and then make use of the savings in a national key. Part of these 2.3 billion are exactly the unused Pnrr, by virtue of savings that could not be reallocated because, as is known, the deadline to reallocate them has expired.”
For Giorgetti, those funds therefore no longer have a destination: “No – he explains – since they are not European resources. Of the State budget obviously the government, and especially the Parliament, dispose as they see fit. They can lower taxes, make expenses, or also decide neither to make taxes nor expenses and carry them to improve budget results,” he concludes.
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