Reuters: Italy Comes With Billions for Energy Compensation

Italy is preparing a package of measures worth €5 billion to compensate Italian residents and businesses for high energy prices. Two government sources from the country say this to the Reuters news agency.

Rome mainly wants to reassess and extend existing measures. The cabinet is expected to approve the measures next Tuesday.

Among other things, the Italian cabinet wants to continue to provide financial support to low-income households until June, and companies will have to pay less tax. The country previously released 21 billion euros for this for 2023.

The Italian Ministry of Finance expects to be able to pay for the new package from the existing budget.

On Thursday, the statistics bureau Eurostat published purchasing power figures for the European Union. Italy is 4 percent below the EU average. On the other hand, purchasing power in the Netherlands is 30 percent higher than average.