"We need a “country plan” to guide Italy towards the new socio-economic and political scenario that is emerging, which will be different from the one we were familiar with until the pandemic. The one-off measures adopted to stem the negative economic effects of the crisis on the various social, economic and productive categories will not be enough. The social partners are ready to provide the Parliament and the Government with their support in terms of proposals and ideas, both for the more acute phase of the emergency and in the planning of the immediate post-crisis phase of gradual reopening. The restart must be an opportunity to think about the country's critical aspects, designing the development model and rethinking the value of essential public services. The actions implemented to manage the emergency will affect the way we exit it. The use of digital technologies, those of information and communication, are proving to be strategic. We can no longer ignore it. The lockdown is about to become unsustainable for the economy."

This is the message that emerged unanimously from the CNEL Assembly which met yesterday, April 8, by videoconference, approving the stress test.

"In the coming months and throughout 2021, our country will have a unique opportunity to try to bridge some historical structural gaps that emerged in all their urgency during the health emergency. Healthcare, school, digital infrastructure and welfare have shown enormous limits related to their failure to adapt to the current situation. Administrative simplification is an essential element for rapid action to support the measures taken during the emergency phase. The next emergency that will occur must not find our country unprepared. We must learn to live with rules that make the health emergency compatible with the economic one – has added President Tiziano Treu - We must press Europe to pursue the path of the Eurobonds, otherwise we will be tied to intergovernmental rules based on a context of great uncertainty and, then, the problem as well as economic and social can also become political".

The actions that will take place in the coming weeks to gradually restart the country after the long lockdown will shape Italy in the next 10 years.

"The absence of a unified position and the inability to make decisions on major economic and social problems and those of solidarity risks jeopardizing the great European project. We need to find new common spaces and overcome the current structure of an intergovernmental framework that provides for monetary sovereignty on one hand and the freedom for States to access individually economic and development policies, as well as fiscal and industrial on the other", underlines the Vice-President Elio Catania.

“We have before us the spectre of recession and social crisis. It is necessary to prefigure a restart in the shortest possible time to address the major structural issues of the country system by working on a new development model and facing the industrial crisis. The role of the state is essential on health and the value of central public services. Some choices need to be reconsidered. We must not forget the economic challenges that await us already in this emergency phase", notes Vice-President Gianna Fracassi.

“The Liquidity decree just approved by the government appears to be an important step in the right direction for the protection of the production system and the financial stability of companies and banks. However, the central problem lies in the speed of implementation of the measures. This speed of implementation of the decisions and the streamlining of the administrative procedures are the two key variables in order not to waste the effectiveness of the measures, avoiding a devastating social crisis that can compromise the stability of the democratic structure of the country", concludes the CNEL.