Economic and Financial Planning Document - DPEF

The Economic and Financial Planning Document - DPEF, introduced by Law No. 362 of 23 August 1988, which amended Art. 3 of Law No. 468 of 5 August 1978, outlines the year-on-year macroeconomic analyses and medium-term forecasts as well as the public finance measures needed to meet the targets set by the Government for the period considered in the multi-year budget.

Its purpose is the coordination of the institutional bodies responsible for planning; it sets the macroeconomic and public finance targets, bearing in mind regional specificities, with particolar reference to the South of Italy; it identifies policies aimed at income and employment growth and budget balancing.

The Government submitted the DPEF to Parliament by May 15 for adoption by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate with the relevant resolutions. On the basis of criteria set in the resolutions the Government drew up the Budget Bill and the Financial Bill. Traditionally the DPEF dealt with the period considered in the multi-year budget (three years). More recently it covered the entire Government term. In case of a significant change in the macroeconomic and public-finance conditions on the basis of which the DPEF was drawn up at the time when the financial package and the new planning documents outlining it are submitted (i.e. the Forecasting and Planning Report and the Stability Programme) the Government had to submit an Update of the DPEF as provided for in Article 3 paragraph 4-bis of Law No. 468 of 5 August 1978 and the Rules of Procedures of the Chamber of Deputies (Title XXVII, Art. 118-bis paragraph 4) adopted on 18 February 1971, published in the Official Journal No. 53 of 1 March 1971 as later amended (September 24, 1997). The DPEF was at times supplemented by sectoral annexes and a summary report. .

Law No. 208 of 25 June 1999 introduced some changes to the DPEF: the year-on-year forecasts of general government revenue and expenditure flows must no longer be provided according to the “unchanged policy” criterion but at “existing legislation”, i.e. considering only the regulations in force at the point in time when the document was drawn up; in addition, reference was no longer made to the enlarged public sector, but to the general government consolidated account. Moreover, the deadline for submitting the DPEF was postponed from May 15 to June 30.

The DPEF was published from 1988 to 2009. With the entry into force of Law No. 196 of 31 December 2009, in 2010 the DPEF was supersed by the Public Finance Decision (Decisione di Finanza Pubblica DFP).