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Italian politics costs taxpayers €757 a year

The Italian political system costs each taxpayer €757 a year, although the prime minister's office costs just €15, the latest report by the Italian Labour Union (UIL) has found.

Published: 17 December 2013 10:44 CET

Italian politics costs taxpayers €757 a year

The cost of the Chamber of Deputies is forecast to be €943 million this year. Photo: Filippo Monteforte/AFP

The direct and indirect costs of Italian politics cost €23.2 billion a year, amounting to €757 per taxpayer, the UIL said in a report released on Monday.

Prime Minister Enrico Letta’s office was forecast to cost €458.6 million in 2013; at €15 per taxpayer the figure is an increase of 11.6 percent on last year.

The office of President Giorgio Napolitano was set to be a relative bargain this year at €228 million, equal to 2012.

Both houses of parliament are getting cheaper, according to the report.

The cost of the Chamber of Deputies went down by five percent on last year to €943 million, according to the forecast. The Senate bill was €505 million for 2013, 4.3 percent lower than last year.

SEE ALSO: Italian MPs twice as pricey as German MPs

But while the costs in some areas of politics may be going down, the labour union noted that the overall price would remain high given the number of people working within the political system.

“A million people live on politics; around five percent of the workforce. Reduce the number and we can go through with constitutional reform,” said Luigi Angeletti, the union secretary.

SEE ALSO: Over a million Italians earn a living from politics

Italy has 1,041 national and European parliamentarians, ministers and undersecretaries, the report said.

In addition, there are 1,270 presidents, councillors and council members at the regional level, 3,446 at provincial level and an additional 138,83 locally.

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Can foreign residents in Italy vote in the European elections?

Across Europe, people will go to the polls in early June to select their representatives in the European Parliament, with 76 seats up for grabs in Italy.

Although European elections usually see a much lower turnout than national elections, they are still seen as important by Italian politicians.

Giorgia Meloni will stand as a candidate this year, hoping use her personal popularity to give her Brothers of Italy party a boost and build on her success in Italy to “send the left into opposition” at the European level too.

When to vote

Across Italy, polling takes place on Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th June 2024.

Polling stations will be set up in the same places as for national and local elections – usually town halls, leisure centres and other public buildings.

You have to vote at the polling station for the municipality in which you are registered as a resident, which should be indicated on your electoral card.

Polling stations open at 8am and mostly close at 6pm, although some stay open later.

Unlike in presidential or local elections, there is only a single round of voting in European elections.

Who can vote?

Italian citizens – including dual nationals – can vote in European elections, even if they don’t live in Italy. As is common for Italian domestic elections, polling booths will be set up in Italian consulates around the world to allow Italians living overseas to vote.

Non-Italian citizens who are living in Italy can only vote if they have citizenship of an EU country. So for example Irish citizens living in Italy can vote in European elections but Americans, Canadians, Australians, etc. cannot.

Brits in Italy used to be able to vote before Brexit, but now cannot – even if they have the post-Brexit carta di soggiorno.

If you have previously voted in an election in Italy – either local or European – you should still be on the electoral roll.

If not, in order to vote you need to send an application more than 90 days before the election date.

How does the election work?

The system for European elections differs from most countries’ domestic polls. MEPs are elected once every five years.

Each country is given an allocation of MEPs roughly based on population size. At present there are 705 MEPs: Germany – the country in the bloc with the largest population – has the most while the smallest number belong to Malta with just six.

Italy, like most of its EU neighbours, elects its MEPs through direct proportional representation via the ‘list’ system, so that parties gain the number of MEPs equivalent to their share of the overall vote.

So, for example, if Meloni’s party won 50 percent of the vote they would get 38 out of the total of 76 Italian seats.

Exactly who gets to be an MEP is decided in advance by the parties who publish their candidate lists in priority order. So let’s say that Meloni’s party does get that 50 percent of the vote – then the people named from 1 to 38 on their list get to be MEPs, and the people lower down on the list do not, unless a candidate (for example, Meloni) declines the seat and passes it on to the next person on the list.

In the run up to the election, the parties decide on who will be their lead candidates and these people will almost certainly be elected (though Meloni would almost definitely not take up her seat as an MEP, as this would mean resigning from office in Italy).

The further down the list a name appears, the less likely that person is to be heading to parliament.

Once in parliament, parties usually seek to maximise their influence by joining one of the ‘blocks’ made up of parties from neighbouring countries that broadly share their interests and values eg centre-left, far-right, green.

The parliament alternates between Strasbourg and Brussels.

Find out more about voting in the European elections from Italy on the European Parliament’s website or the Italian interior ministry’s website.

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