A BTP-Bund spread of around 500 "causes losses equal to 0,9% of GDP and 144 jobs". This is the alarm raised today by the Confindustria study centre, which underlines how today the Italian differential is more than 300 points in excess of the real gap between the fundamentals of Italy and Germany. The inflated spread causes "higher interest charges of 12,4 billion on the public budget, 12,1 billion on household accounts and 23,7 on corporate accounts".
Furthermore, according to the CSC, this anomaly "has repercussions on the cost of money paid by households, businesses and banks, considerably accentuates the credit crunch and, causing the new and violent recession underway, inflicts heavy and counterproductive economic, social and political costs" .
The losses in terms of GDP and employment, adds the study center, "reduce the potential for future growth, nullifying part of the efforts made with the policies of recovery and structural reform and undermining the consensus in favor of those same policies of reform and recovery , which immediately impose inevitable sacrifices on the country”.
According to Confindustria, the only remedy to resolve the situation is "an anti-spread shield challenged by the ECB". It should therefore be "profoundly redesigned compared to the current version, assigning it much more resources (ideally they should be unlimited) and attributing its discretionary and unilateral management to the ECB, which monitors compliance with the stability programs agreed with the European Commission".
Frankfurt, adds the CSC, “must give an account of its decisions to the European Parliament and in this way avoid assuming improper political responsibilities, dropping the accusation of a lack of democracy. The redesigned shield would constitute the first concrete and decisive step towards perfecting the European political union already contained in essence in the single currency”.
Download the CSC note with all the results of the study:
Attachments: CSC note no. 5.pdf
