MACERATA A bolt from the blue. Which overnight caught entrepreneurs, technicians, mayors, parliamentarians and, more generally, all those who are working on post-earthquake reconstruction by surprise.
The draft law decree discussed in the Council of Ministers on Tuesday evening provides for a new tightening of the Super bonuseliminating the discount on the invoice and the transfer of the credit. With a stop therefore which will also directly involve the construction sites in the crater area which had instead been extended until the end of 2025. The text is very detailed, the works already started or authorized and the condominiums who have already presented a Cilas are saved from the trap and adopted a resolution approving the works. Discourse eliminated for others even if the situation is evolving.
The criticisms
Confartigianato Macerata-Fermo-Ascoli immediately speaks of a “mess that is holding back reconstruction”. The Cna of Macerata and Fermo described «unfulfilled promises». But the world of technical professions is also rising. Not to mention politics, in turmoil from right to left. Opposition parliamentarians are on the attack, from the Democratic Party to the 5 Star Movement, while those from the center-right are working to try to save what can be saved. The mayors of all the parties are mobilising. Everyone calls into question and asks for help from the reconstruction commissioner Guido Castelli. «We’re at work. I have been in contact with Palazzo Chigi and Mef since yesterday evening to try to correct the situation”, explains the latter. According to the draft decree, therefore, new works in the crater area will no longer be able to use the financing mechanism through the invoice discount and the transfer of credit.
The concessions
The concessions today cover the share of the burden of the owners of unusable real estate units. Without access to the invoice discount, those who have an uninhabitable home may not have the liquidity to advance the sums necessary for reconstruction. According to the latest reconstruction report, around 22,000 projects are still pending. Who now risk it. «I am monitoring the progress of the issues minute by minute – explains Castelli -. I am doing this with the governors of the four Regions involved and I am confident that in any case, if the rumors are confirmed, it will be during the conversion that we will try to correct the situation.”
In fact, the decree law will come into force immediately but will then begin a parliamentary process for its conversion into law which can last up to 60 days. In this context, changes can be made. But earthquake victims (and companies) would lose two months of time. An eternity. «I tried to explain – continues Castelli – that for the crater the Superbonus is not a luxury tool but the one with which we have counteracted the increase in the prices of materials». So for Castelli there are now two options: “Either in the crater area the credit transfer and invoice discount linked to 110 are maintained or the parametric contribution will have to be increased.”
The possibility
Castelli therefore also opens up the possibility of buffering the situation with an increase in the contribution, a request which has also arrived in recent weeks from many technicians in the crater precisely to definitively separate the paths of the earthquake from the very troubled ones of the Superbonus. «The concrete risk – comments the territorial president of Confartigianato Enzo Mengoni – is that this uncertainty will discourage investments and lead banks and financial institutions to interrupt any economic disbursement, with stagnation effects for the entire productive world». «For us this is an incomprehensible decision», comment the leaders of Cna Fermo, Emiliano Tomassini and Andrea Caranfa.
Uncertainty reigns among businesses. «Many operators are anxious today, trying to understand how this intervention will influence ongoing and future works and how contracts already signed will be protected» adds Maurizio Tritarelli of the Cna of Macerata. Even the mayors, led by that of Arquata, one of the municipalities most affected by the 2016 earthquake, are going on the attack: «For us – says Michele Franchi – pulling the plug on the Superbonus is equivalent to pulling the plug on the rebirth of the territory». «We have already met Minister Giorgetti. We are working towards a fair and functional rule”, the regional secretary Giorgia Latini and the parliamentarian Riccardo Augusto Marchetti comment from the League.
