By Giuseppe Fonte
ROME (Reuters) – Italy will unveil a set of measures on Friday worth roughly 3 billion euros ($3.14 billion) to help families and firms cope with high energy costs, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said.
Rising gas prices are a major headache for Italy’s government as they risk blunting the impact of tax cutsintroduced in its 2025 budget to shore up the purchasing power of low and middle-income earners.
The cabinet is also expected on Friday to adopt draft legislation aimed at allowing the use of nuclear power again, after it was banned almost 40 years ago, a representative from the energy ministry said.
“We will set aside 2 billion euros to support families and an additional 1 billion for small and medium-sized (SMEs) companies,” Salvini said in a radio interview.
The aid package will be effective for just three months because Rome is betting that gas prices will fall with summer months approaching.
“Hopefully in the next three months there will be a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine” that would give some relief to energy markets, Salvini added.
U.S. President Donald Trump is pushing for a rapid end to the three-year war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and has driven global energy prices higher.
The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub was up 2.6 euros at 44 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), by 1027 GMT on Thursday, according to LSEG data.
Highly indebted Italy has pledged to bring its budget deficit below the European Union’s 3% of GDP ceiling in 2026 from 3.8% targeted in 2024, leaving it limited leeway to support the economy.
PRESSURE
The government was ready to adopt the aid package on Monday, but Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni delayed the decision because she deemed that the measures set by the economy and energy ministries were too numerous and would not be sufficiently effective, officials have said.
Meloni put pressure on her top aides so that a large part of the resources to be earmarked on Friday would go to benefit families, they added.
The legislation on nuclear power is part of a wider plan to build small modular reactors which the government said could help decarbonise Italy’s most polluting industries, including steel, glass and tilemaking.
Nuclear-fired power plants were prohibited in Italy following referendums in 1987 and 2011, but the government is now drafting rules to lift the ban.
Industry Ministry Adolfo Urso said on Wednesday that state-backed Enel, Ansaldo and Leonardo were close to setting up a company to study effective solutions to build nuclear reactors in Italy.
Italy is also in talks with several companies including U.S. energy group Westinghouse and France’s EDF as potential partners for that state-backed company.
($1 = 0.9546 euros)
(Reporting by Giuseppe Fonte; Editing by Gareth Jones)
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