Good morning from Brussels. This is Mared Gwyn with a packed newsletter to kick off your Wednesday.
First, an exclusive: The European Commission is set to criticise the Italian government's cuts to excise fuel duties in a report published later today, arguing that such untargeted measures are ineffective. This after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni asked Brussels for even more fiscal flexibility to respond to the energy crisis stemming from the Iran war, as our political correspondent Luca Bertuzzi explains.
The Commission is also expected to castigate Rome for a lack of a robust industrial plan, in separate country-specific recommendations also expected to be published today, Luca reports with Eleonora Vasques.
Italy's tax regime is expected to also receive criticism for being too heavily reliant on labour. The recommendations are also set to say that the country’s flat-tax regime for the self-employed makes the tax system "highly complex" as it "weakens progressivity and erodes the tax base, resulting in significant revenue loss”.
The quest for tech sovereignty: Also today, the European Commission is due to make its move on tech sovereignty with a sweeping package covering cloud services, AI technologies, advanced chips and open source.
