Italy’s Meloni might water down money funds plan after EU talks By Reuters

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni speaks throughout a information convention to current her authorities’s first finances in Rome, Italy, November 22, 2022. REUTERS/Remo Casilli

ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni mentioned on Sunday that she might water down plans to make it simpler to settle small funds with money quite than playing cards, following talks with the European Fee over the difficulty.

Meloni’s right-wing authorities has offered a 2023 finances that scraps fines for retailers who refuse playing cards for funds below 60 euros ($63.23), in a transfer seen as going in opposition to the spirit of commitments taken with the EU.

“Till 60 euros, we want to not power retailers to simply accept digital funds. However to illustrate that the 60-euro threshold is indicative, for me it may even be decrease,” Meloni mentioned in a video posted on Fb (NASDAQ:).

“In addition to, there are clearly discussions on this with the European Fee, as a result of the difficulty of digital funds is without doubt one of the problems with the [EU recovery plan], so now we have to see, we’ll see how the discussions finish,” she added.

Italy is the largest recipient of the EU’s post-pandemic restoration fund, standing to obtain round 200 billion euros by way of 2026. However in return, it has to adjust to a sequence of reform “targets and milestones.”

Considered one of them, hammered out below the previous administration of Mario Draghi, was the introduction of sanctions for retailers who refuse card funds, as a part of measures to battle tax evasion.

Meloni insisted that making it simpler to pay money was not a backhanded method of serving to tax dodging – an endemic drawback in Italy, the place greater than 100 billion euros are evaded every year, in accordance with Treasury knowledge.

She mentioned the identical about one other controversial proposal from the draft finances, which has but to be permitted by parliament: elevating the cap on money funds to five,000 euros, from a restrict of 1,000 euros that was as a consequence of kick in on Jan. 1.

($1 = 0.9489 euros)