European states that have adopted a nationalist approach should review their choices. According to Irene Tinagli, PD MEP and President of the Special Commission on the Housing Crisis in the EU, this is the first step to take to enable the Old Continent’s economy to grow again. She said this while speaking on the Radio24 programme “Friends and foes”, hosted by Marianna Aprile and Daniele Bellasio.
According to data released this week by the European Central Bank, in fact, the EU is in danger of grinding to a halt: “It is expected that high uncertainty, rising effective tariffs, a stronger euro and increased global competition will dampen growth in the fourth quarter of 2025.
In order to strengthen the European budget, according to Tinagli we need: common investments (also by issuing debt) to finance energy infrastructure; European industrial policies; the creation of a more coordinated capital market. In order to realise these projects, a clear political will is needed, i.e. the willingness to ‘loosen up a bit’ the grip on ‘national power’. A prospect that, today, some governments do not seem to like, Italy in primis. For Tinagli, in fact, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is not for’more European integration’, nor does she want to make the EU institutions more flexible, given her opposition to abandoning unanimity for key decisions.
Yet, according to the ECB, the Italian economy, like the German economy, is ‘steady’. This situation, says Tinagli, is nothing more than ‘the result of a slowdown that we have been seeing for two or three years’, i.e. since the post-Covid rebound. A trend that would also have worsened because, according to the MEP, the government “has not been able to make good use of the NRP, which has been remodelled several times and constantly reduced”. The finger is also pointed at the Superbonus (which has never been replaced with valid ‘industrial and economic policy measures) and the manoeuvre, which lacks “an industrial policy vision for the sectors with the greatest potential for recovery and momentum, not just those in difficulty”.
Manoeuvre that, Aprile and Bellasio recall, also envisages an increase in the tax on short-term rentals from 21% to 26% (an issue on which Forza Italia has asked for an about-turn by tabling an amendment). According to Tinagli, “raising taxation will increase revenue a little”, but on housing there is above all a need for resources and rules. On the one hand, in fact, ‘we have 60 thousand empty council houses that we could renovate in a few months and give to needy families’. On the other hand, the municipalities that most closely deal with issues such as overtourism and the high number of bed and breakfast establishments need “a clear regulatory framework”, also of a European nature, to help them manage the impact of these phenomena on the territory.
Still talking about the manoeuvre, Tinagli then defines the debate on capital as “surreal”. And she attacks: conforming to a trend that has been going on for years in the international tax system, “our government has been at the forefront in exempting American multinationals (particularly the big tech ones) from the global mimum tax, thus allowing them to accumulate billions in assets. In the face of these issues, in his view, internal battles over taxes “become secondary”