Draghi holds Renzi back on the roof of the remuneration of Bank of Italy top management. According to the number one of the European Central Bank, the salary of the governor of Bank of Italy must not be touched, because "the imposition of a ceiling of 240 euros on remuneration is expressly qualified as a 'principle' or 'rule of direction', rather than as a rule whose strict observance is imposed". This is what we read in the opinion that the ECB sent to the Italian Treasury Ministry.
However, the question does not concern money itself, but rather a general principle of independence of central banks from their respective executives. Eurotower believes that central institutions should not be "influenced by the government of a member state with respect to its personnel policy". For this reason, Draghi believes that the Italian premier cannot claim the extension of the spending review launched by the Rome government to the salaries of the Bank of Italy directorate.
Governor Ignazio Visco now earns 495 thousand euros a year, plus a pension as a former central manager which should be around 200 thousand euros. Little more than Draghi himself, who, in addition to also collecting a pension as a former employee of the Bank of Italy, receives 451 thousand euros a year from the ECB.
According to the rules of the Renzian spending review - contained in the Irpef decree pending the final conversion by the Chamber, after the go-ahead obtained with the trust in the Senate - the salary of all civil servants should be adapted to that of the first president of the Court of Cassation, which represents the new maximum ceiling, i.e. the famous threshold of 240 thousand euros.
In the text of the law, the Government explicitly establishes that "the Bank of Italy, in its organizational and financial autonomy, adapts its legal system to the principles" established. But the ECB is not there and is asking Palazzo Koch to decide whether or not to adopt the salary limitation. The next move, at this point, is up to Visco who will cut the salaries of the central bank's top management but autonomously and not within the terms set by the Government.
