Italy's CGIL keeps 20 November strike after budget talks at Palazzo Chigi

Government meets employers, then unions

On Friday, 13 November 2026, the government held two rounds of talks at Palazzo Chigi on the 2027 budget bill (legge di bilancio). In the morning, Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti told employers' groups that the government would accept changes to parts of the text, including the exit tax, but not measures that overturn the bill's overall structure. He pointed to the public finance sustainability path begun four years ago and to a cautious stance in a complex international climate. The union session was originally set for 9 in the morning, according to Maurizio Landini, and was moved to the afternoon. Landini, the CGIL general secretary, did not attend and sent a delegation from the union's secretariat, objecting that the government had presented the bill to Parliament before consulting the unions.

School cuts dropped, health funding still open

Pierpaolo Bombardieri, general secretary of the UIL, said the government had announced it would withdraw the planned intervention on school cuts.

“The government has announced that it will withdraw the intervention on school cuts.”

Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara welcomed what he called the overcoming of cuts to school staffing, and CISL general secretary Daniela Fumarola said the cuts had been reversed. On health, Bombardieri said Giorgetti had told the unions the government was weighing additional resources in dialogue with the State-Regions conference, and that UIL would keep pressing for them. He also asked that public money not go to accredited private facilities that have refused to renew staff contracts for years. Fumarola said the government was still checking available funds and that any that became feasible would go to health.

CGIL calls talks useless and keeps the strike

Christian Ferrari, a CGIL official, described the meeting as courteous but politically useless and said the union's strongly negative judgment of the bill stood. He argued that the budget rests on austerity and rearmament, cuts education, defunds health care, trims pension indexation and confirms a higher retirement age. Ferrari also objected to the absence of a strategy to offset the end of the PNRR and deindustrialization, and to more than 14 billion earmarked for military spending over the next two years. He called it the largest increase in defence spending seen in Italy in peacetime.

“We challenge the entire framework; a completely different economic policy is needed to tackle the country's problems.”

Ferrari said these points confirmed the reasons for the general strike the CGIL has called for 20 November.

Builders and property owners seek changes

Giorgio Spaziani Testa, president of Confedilizia, welcomed the real estate measures, including a flat-rate tax on shop rents, lower tax on residential rents and confirmation of building renovation incentives. He proposed softening the ban on rent increases for commercial leases, extending the reduced cedolare secca to all municipalities for agreed-rent leases, and revising new spending caps for energy-efficiency deductions. Angelo Camilli, Confindustria's vice president for credit, finance and tax, said the rule stretching Superbonus tax credits acts on a market that has already consolidated and drains liquidity from companies. Asked whether the government had given reassurances, he answered 'No'. ANCE director general Romain Bocognani said about 20% of companies would be affected, and the builders estimated a requirement of 1.4 billion for rising material costs. Camilli said the coming weeks would show whether there is room to work on the Superbonus issue.