Italy has what it takes, but now it needs to reduce debt and restore confidence. This is the warning of the European commissioner for the internal market, Michel Barnier, heard in the joint commissions for Industry, Finance and EU Policies of the Chamber and the Senate. And just as Merkel freezes the markets by rejecting Eurobonds, Barnier on the contrary argues that it is a "just and logical idea".
-Italy.
For Barnier, Italy can manage to overcome the moment of crisis it is going through and a positive element is the constitution of the new government under the leadership of Mario Monti, which has “two qualities we need: discipline and determination. You have many trump cards. I would have liked France to have maintained the same Italian vitality, just look at the small and medium-sized enterprises, household savings, the contained deficit and the banking sector correctly supervised by the Bank of Italy which has been able to avoid excessive risks”.
“There are some positive elements you need to leverage on and Europe must leverage – he added – we need to reduce the public debt and on this we applaud the appointment of Mario Monti, with whom we have been colleagues”.
In short, Italy has the "trump cards" to overcome the economic crisis, but now it must "reduce the debt and restore confidence". And he took the opportunity to express his satisfaction with Monti's meeting with Merkel and Sarkozy in Strasbourg. “I believe – said Barnier – that the Franco-German axis is increasingly necessary, but no longer sufficient. They have to come to an agreement, but they have to listen to the others, that's why I'm glad Monti was there”.
-Eurobonds.
“I believe that the idea of Eurobonds is right and logical if there is the same market and the same currency”, argued the EU commissioner. According to Barnier, "the prerequisite for the Eurbonds is greater budgetary and economic coordination" between the countries of the euro area. Barnier underlined how "the moment we are experiencing is extremely serious and the truth must be told: we have to face many crises at the same time, the financial crisis with its epicenter in the USA, the economic and social crisis with very serious consequences in the lives of citizens and the sovereign debt whose epicenter is in Europe”.
And these simultaneous crises "we all have to face together". And in this context, the introduction of the Tobin Tax, the tax on financial transactions, is a "sign of fairness"'. “I don't think – specified Barnier – that the tax on financial transactions, if the rate is low, will cause relocations. It is a matter of fairness, because citizens will accept sacrifices if they feel that these efforts are shared fairly”.
- BCE.
And still addressing the current crisis and the attitude of the European Central Bank, Bernier argued that “it has played its role in an absolutely voluntary and positive way. It does not seem to me necessary to amend the treaty to allow the ECB to continue to play its role in complete independence". The Central Bank's purchase of securities of countries in difficulty, he added, is done "on a voluntary basis, and it is absolutely positive".
As for the credit institutions of our country, in Italy "the banking sector has been well supervised by the Bank of Italy which has been able to prevent excessive risks from being taken". Barnier did not fail to launch a dig at the rating agencies: ”We will reduce the excessive dependence of banks on rating agencies. I have no ideologies or preconceptions about them. They are needed, but they must be transparent, rigorous and credible”.
