The new head of Italy's main business association criticised the labour reform plans currently going through parliament as insufficient on Thursday and called for lower taxes and more help for small companies struggling to raise credit.
Speaking to the annual meeting of Confindustria, its new president Giorgio Squinzi reiterated the association's regular complaints about the heavy tax burden and bureaucratic hurdles faced by Italian business.
He also repeated criticisms made by his predecessor, Emma Marcegaglia, of Prime Minister Mario Monti's labour reform accord, intended to free up the jobs market by making it easier for companies to lay off workers during business downturns.
The labour reform was at the heart of Monti's reform programme to shake up Italy's stagnant economy, but it has been bitterly criticised by business groups since it was amended under union pressure, giving the courts the power to order companies to reinstate workers under some circumstances.
“It's a reform that changes the system in several points but which, in our judgment, is not convincing,” Squinzi said in his first speech as president.
He also called for more help for the small firms which make up the backbone of the Italian economy, and which have suffered badly from the credit squeeze, urging the government to settle its huge arrears of unpaid bills with suppliers.
As the principal voice of Italian business, Confindustria plays an important role in shaping the political debate in Italy, and it clashed frequently with former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi during the last months of his government.
Marcegaglia, the association's first woman president, carved out a prominent position with a series of trenchant demands for reform of the Italian economy, the most sluggish in the European Union for the past decade. - Reuters