The Blog interviewed the mayors:
The stability pact is throttling the towns
Blog – Can you explain briefly what the stability pact is and what is the proposal of the ANCI (Associazione Nazionale Comuni Italiani) {National Association of Italian Towns}?
Mayor – The stability pact should be of use to the public administration to reduce the public debt. How it has been put into practice now it’s not good for the towns that is the towns that have the possibility to spend. I’ll give you an example. Our town is Castelleone in the province of Cremona, it has a budget surplus of 2,760,000 euro but it cannot spend 100 thousand Euro to put asphalt on the roads! And these are the contradictions of the stability pact. The stability pact should be applied to those towns that haven’t balanced their books. Those yes need to rein in and reduce the public debt. However, those towns that have balanced their books should be allowed to spend the money they have.
A town that’s doing the right thing from an accounting viewpoint cannot spend the money available, that is the money of the citizens, the money of the town of Castelleone. This is not transfer money from the State. This is the contradiction of the stability pact.
Blog – So what is the proposal of the ANCI?
Mayor – The ANCI’s proposal is to allow the towns to spend the budget surplus , to spend their own resources that they have available. The problem is national, with the stability pact it’s national. The towns of Lombardy and those of the North are those with the biggest problems because as they haven’t done the spending before, as they haven’t got themselves into debt before, now they are having difficulty in ensuring there are the services and the investments in their own towns.
We are asking to be able to spend our citizens’ money on the work that our citizens are asking for.
Blog – And why is this not possible?
Mayor – It’s not possible because otherwise we would be going outside the stability pact. The stability pact is a balance between expenditure and revenue in a town and consequently if we don’t have the possibility to identify a route that allows us to satisfy the needs of our citizens in a town because our towns are absolutely “virtuous” in the meaning that they have not spent beyond their budget, we are simply asking to be able to make investments and for us also to have those opportunities that other mayors have, obviously not in the North of Italy. The typical example is Rome, because especially the small and medium sized towns because I represent a town of 20 thousand. There are some towns round about us that even have money that is deposited and staying still and blocked. They can’t spend the money because otherwise they would be going outside the stability pact.
It works like that, with the stability pact it works that the income, or anyway the economic resources that the town has in its treasury for a part they can be used by the town, for another part it is instead used by the State to pay off the debt with the European Community. Thus for example, if they have a hundred in the coffers, the State says look you can use 40. I’ll take 60 to pay off the debt with the European Community.

...