The cabinet has approved a decree containing measures targeting southern Italy, sources said today. The decree creates a single special economic zone (SEZ).
A new government decree creates a single special economic zone (SEZ) encompassing all the southern regions. It also allocates funding for strategic interventions on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa.
The single SEZ combines Italy’s eight existing SEZs (Abruzzo, Calabria, Campania, Ionian, Adriatic, Eastern Sicily, Western Sicily and Sardinia). It offers special conditions for investment, tax benefits and administrative and bureaucratic streamlining to better promote regional growth and development.
The government received the green light for the project during a meeting between European Affairs Minister Raffaele Fitto and European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager, who is also the Commissioner responsible for Cohesion, in Brussels in July.
Premier Giorgia Meloni hailed the development, saying it represented a “step change” for the southern economy.
“The development of the economy in southern Italy is a priority for our government,” said Meloni at the time.
“However, we are convinced that this goal must be achieved by abandoning the logic of welfarism, which does not work, and providing opportunities for work and growth and making these areas of the country competitive and attractive for investments and businesses,” she added.
On the measures targeting Lampedusa specifically, Civil Protection Minister Nello Musumeci said they are “compensation for the problems and inconveniences suffered by the island as a result of the migratory phenomenon“.
The decree “includes measures for (the creation of) infrastructures of strategic interest,” he added.
