Meloni government waters down increase to ministers’ salaries after huge backlash

ROME — Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government has scaled back a proposal that would give substantial salary increases to ministers without parliamentary seats following three days of public outcry. 

The law, suggested amid ongoing budget talks, proposed raising the salaries of technocratically appointed ministers by some €7,000 a month to equalize their pay with ministers who receive separate salaries as MPs. 

The pay rise would have applied to around eight ministers, including Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi and Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli. 

The mooted increase — though small in the grand scheme of things — drew swift condemnation from opposition lawmakers who contrasted it with the meager provisions afforded for health care and pensions in a budget that has been kept tight in service of major tax cuts and an European Union push for deficit consolidation. 

Lawmakers in left-populist party 5Star Movement blasted the proposal as a “shameful law.” Elly Schlein, leader of the center-left Democratic Party, said: “While with one hand they increase the salaries of ministers, with the other they block the minimum wage.  Let it not be said that this government does not know how to choose priorities.”

It wasn’t clear, even in government circles, who authored the bill. Hounded at a party political festival over the weekend, Giuli treated reporters to an awkward two minutes of silence. 

Following the backlash, Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, who also would have benefited from the increase, asked officials engaged in frantic late-night discussions ahead of a parliamentary debate on the budget to withdraw the proposal, saying it was necessary to “avoid unnecessary controversy.” 

A watered-down amendment was subsequently proposed that would allow only travel reimbursements for ministers from a €500,000 dedicated pot for 2025.

Elected ministers receive a monthly net income of around €5,000 as well as €3,500 in accommodation expenses and €3,690 to pay for staff. The law would have entitled unelected ministers to those expenses as well as an additional €1,200 a year for phone bills.

By contrast, a mooted increase to pensions in Italy is expected to amount to around €1.80 a month.