ITALY Trends and Developments Contributed by: David A Röttgen, Andrea Farì, Francesco Fonderico and Ermanno Fonderico, Ambientalex Studio Legale
tional principles, without prejudice to co-ordination with the extra-environmental code”. The commission, set up at the cabinet office of the Minister of the Envi- ronment and Energy Security, will be able to “split into possible sub-commissions” where, as the appoint- ment decree states, “the work of the commission is particularly broad and complex”. The “construction site” of environmental codification, therefore, is still open and will probably remain so for a long time. There are no new updates with regards to the frame- work outlined in 2024. The sixth strand The sixth strand is the annual budget law, currently under discussion and to be passed by the end of 2025. With it, the government submits to parliament for approval the public expenditure and revenue fore- cast for the following year. Although it is a law with financial content, it also often contains substantive provisions on environmental issues. The draft Budget Law 2025 provides for reductions in some eco-incen- tives (including the “Superbonus”), while other incen- tives (such as the furniture bonus) are still awaiting clarification. The 110% Superbonus, aimed at the ecological tran- sition (Article 119 of Decree-Law 34/2020, the so- called “Relaunch Decree”), in its original configuration consisted of a tax deduction of 110% of the expens- es incurred from 1 July 2020 to 30 July 2022 for the implementation of specific interventions aimed at energy efficiency and static/seismic consolidation of buildings. In the last few years, this incentive scheme has been downsized and remodelled to: • 110% for expenses incurred up to 31 December 2023; • 70% for expenses incurred in 2024; and • 65% for expenses incurred in 2025, with subjective and objective limitations compared to the original version.
However, owing to high public finance costs, accord- ing to press reports this seems not to be confirmed by the Budget Law 2026. Omnibus Decree No 95/2025, as converted into law by Law No 118/2025, extends the 110% Superbonus until the end of 2026 only for work carried out in areas affected by earthquakes that occurred in certain Ital- ian regions in 2009 and since 24 August 2016, where a state of emergency was declared, with the related application submitted by 30 March 2024. The Home Bonus relates to a wide variety of incentives (eg. renovation, redevelopment, installation of sys- tems based on the use of renewable energy sources, asbestos abatement works, seismic reinforcement, etc). The related tax deductions depend on a wide variety of factors and are subject to review each year. In spite of the reforms under way, in the short term it is unlikely to be possible to simplify the competencies and subjects involved in environmental procedures, since the complexity of the decision-making pro- cess depends mainly on the number of public bodies called upon to express their opinion in authorisation processes – which, moreover, may vary significantly in the individual regions and autonomous provinces.
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