By Francesca Piscioneri and Gavin Jones
ROME, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Italy approved a stimulus package on Friday to help families and firms hit by the global financial crisis, but analysts said the measures were surprisingly timid and would have little or no impact on the crumbling economy. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said the measures approved by his centre-right government amounted to 80 billion euros ($103.5 billion), but economists pointed out the vast majority was a recycling of funds already available.
Marco Valli of Unicredit MIB estimated that new money amounted to 5 billion euros while Tito Boeri, economics professor at Milan's Bocconi University, put it at just 3-3.5 billion, or around 0.25 percent of gross domestic product.
"This is not even an aspirin, it's not even half an aspirin," Boeri said. He estimated the citizens who benefited from the plan would receive an average of around 25 euros per month, which would not change their spending behaviour.
The measures announced by Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti at a news conference included a temporary freeze on regulated energy prices and road tolls, 2.4 billion euros in tax breaks for poorer families and some marginal easing of the direct and indirect tax burden for companies.
"The message we want to send is one of confidence, for consumers and for workers," Tremonti said.
He also announced variable mortgage rates will be capped at 4 percent, with the government paying any difference if rates rise above this level.
Boeri dismissed such measures as being populist rather than substantial. He pointed out energy prices and mortgage rates are in any case in decline and said the government would have done far better to significantly raise benefits for the unemployed.
Fedele De Novellis of the Milan-based Ref think-tank, who estimated the package amounted to just 0.2 percent of GDP, agreed "it would have been better to help those who lose their jobs".
Berlusconi appealed to Italians to keep on shopping and said he was "going hoarse" by pleading with his fellow European Union prime ministers to transmit a message of optimism.
"We have helped citizens, the less well off, so that they can continue to consume," he said. "The intensity and duration of the crisis depends on all of us."
Italy's package is the latest in a series of attempts by euro zone governments to try to support their wilting economies in the face of the global financial crisis.
The European Commission on Wednesday called on EU states to present expansionary measures worth a total of 200 billion euros, or 1.5 percent of the 27-member bloc's GDP.
Recent indicators have shown Italy's industrial activity and the economy as a whole are in deep contraction, a trend which is expected to continue at least until the middle of next year.
Unicredit's Valli said the "very modest" package would have no impact on those prospects.
Virtually all independent forecasters see the economy contracting this year and in 2009, the first consecutive years of falling gross domestic product since World War Two.
Tremonti said Italy's debt mountain -- the third highest in the world -- meant Rome could not afford to pour more money into the economy, and confirmed a previous target to bring the debt-to-GDP ratio below 100 percent in 2011.
Boeri said in the current crisis such fiscal rectitude was "out of synch and hard to understand."
He said expansionary policies under Berlusconi's previous government between 2001 and 2006 had pushed the budget deficit far over European limits, whereas now that such measures were needed the government seemed strangely reluctant to use them.
* For highlights of the government's package click on
* For a story on measures for banks click on
-- additional reporting by Francesca Piscioneri, Stefano Bernabei and Francesca Landini