Council of Ministers at 10am for state funerals, then the budget waits for September 22

The Council of Ministers is convened for today, Monday 14 September 2026, at 10:00 at Palazzo Chigi. On the agenda is the examination of the decree of the President of the Republic ordering state funerals for Senator Emma Bonino and MP Raffaele Costa. The convocation is published by the Presidency of the Council and confirmed by the ANSA news agency.

The Senate paid tribute to Bonino in the chamber; the European flag was placed on the coffin lying in state. These are the only two ceremonial elements that the available material reports with certainty: as we go to press, we do not have the date, location and form of the funerals, which depend precisely on the act the government is examining this morning.

The day’s second act: the budget

Once the institutional part is concluded, the government’s table returns to the dossier that will occupy the autumn. According to Today.it’s roundup, the Minister of Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti has floated including in the budget law a 5% tax rate on salary increases for young workers. The same day is also covered on the front page of the newspaper Domani of 14 September.

Three things need to be said about this hypothesis, all of them procedural. The first: this is a statement, not draft legislation. There is, in the available material, no age threshold defining “young”, no cost estimate for the treasury, nor the scope of employment relationships involved. The second: a preferential rate on pay increases is a measure that acts on the flow rather than the stock, meaning it rewards the increase and not the salary level, and its effect depends entirely on how many raises are actually granted. The third: for the measure to exist, it must fit within a balance, and the balance is not yet known.

The date that decides everything is September 22

The government is in fact waiting for 22 September 2026, when Istat will release updated data on gross domestic product and the deficit/GDP ratio. It is on that survey that the financial margin of the budget law being prepared depends: a drop in the deficit below the 3% threshold would allow Italy to exit the European excessive deficit procedure, with wider room for the budget.

A caveat should be noted here: the news about the link between Istat data and the exit from the procedure currently comes from a single source (Today.it’s roundup, which cites Istat’s release calendar and government sources); no independent confirmation is available in this dossier. The date of the statistical publication, however, is also reported in the context of the Ministry of Economy’s expectations.

Why this budget weighs more than others

The available material notes a political element that is not a minor detail: this is the last budget law before the general elections expected in the current legislature. This is the circumstance that explains why fiscal measures of small unit amount — a preferential rate on part of the paycheck — are announced months before the text is drafted, and why every announcement should be read as positioning as much as technical proposal.

What we don’t know

We do not know whether Giorgetti’s proposal has already been shared by the majority, nor whether it has identified funding. We do not know the size of the deficit that Istat will certify, and therefore neither whether exiting the excessive deficit procedure is a likely or merely possible scenario. Finally, we do not know which other measures will enter the budget law framework: so far there is one announced hypothesis, not a full picture.

Two appointments remain fixed: this morning’s Council of Ministers at 10am on the state funerals, and September 22 for Istat’s figures.

Sources: Italian Government — Presidency of the Council (Council of Ministers convocation); ANSA; Today.it; The Front Pager (front page of Domani, 14 September 2026).