More clumsy than that the anti-Visco parliamentary motion of the Pd, whatever the judgment one wants to give on the current Governor of the Bank of Italy, could not really be. An operation of this kind raises extremely delicate questions of method and merit which must be tackled with balance but which do not allow for either exploitation or trivialization. However, one point needs to be clarified immediately, beyond the too many hypocrisies circulating on one side and the other: however debatable and irrelevant it may be, the motion of the Democratic Party is neither an act of treason nor, much less, an abuse of candies. This is not the heart of the problem, but it is quite clear that est modus in rebus, because if the Democratic Party wanted to distance itself from the confirmation of Ignazio Visco at the helm of the Bank of Italy there were more respectful and elegant ways to do it.
Certainly the electoral campaign emphasizes and deforms everything and the toxins of demagoguery it puts into circulation poison public confrontation, but a preventive phone call from Matteo Renzi to Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni would not have been enough to represent the opposite orientation of the Democratic Party in a less muscular way the confirmation of Governor Visco at the top of the Bank of Italy? The form is not a useless frill and makes the difference, even if it is entirely legitimate for the Democratic Party to express its choice on the appointment in view of Via Nazionale without this taking the form of an invasion of the field. Because it's not.
Power of appointment and respect for the independence of the Bank of Italy are not the same thing. The independence of the central bank shouldn't even remotely be questioned because it corresponds to the national interest, but the appointment of the Governor can only be up to the political power. This happens all over the world and it is the same Italian law that governs the procedure by providing that it is up to the Prime Minister to advance a proposal in the Council of Ministers and to the President of the Republic to sign the relative appointment decree.
After all, how can we forget the ways in which the last Berlusconi government led to the unexpected promotion of Visco to number one on Via Nazionale? The natural candidate to succeed Mario Draghi, called to the presidency of the ECB, was the Director General of the Bank of Italy, Fabrizio Saccomanni, an esteemed personality in Italy and abroad but disliked by the then Economy Minister, Giulio Tremonti who pushed Berlusconi to set it aside and pave the way for Visco. A choice that can be discussed endlessly but which was fully within the legitimate powers of the government. Even then there was a problem of method and there was a problem of substance and things went as we know.
As for the substance, it can be debated whether or not Visco's confirmation is the best choice, but it is legitimate to do so. There is no doubt that on the crisis of the four banks in central Italy, on MPS and on the Veneto banks, the action of the Banking Supervision was slow to say the least and sometimes not very effective, but it was the responsibility of Visco or of supervisory rules more attentive to the respect of the forms than to the substance of the questions? Naturally, rules are not everything and people are not all the same, but a balanced budget of the Governorate of Visco must take every aspect into account.
What will Visco do at this point? Will he be confirmed in extremis, will he leave, will a new Governor of the Bank of Italy arrive? We will know soon even if the motion of the Democratic Party, however sweetened by the Government, speaks for itself. But, in any case, the prime minister's responsibility today is great, and no one will give him discounts if his moves are not up to the situation. Whatever choice he makes, the appointment he proposes for the Bank of Italy can only be inspired by the Governor's criteria of maximum authority, competence, ability to work as a team and above all freedom of thought.
Remains or not in Via Nazionale, Visco - who under the obscurantist reign of Antonio Fazio was exiled to the OECD - had the merit of enhancing the various skills and cultural pluralism in the Bank of Italy and this is a treasure which, however it ends the story of the appointments, cannot be lost.
